Beth Copeland: Second Wife
Fifteen years ago I drove south to see you as trees broke
into bloom—redbuds, pears, dogwoods—and my heart
unfolded like a bud closed too long in the cold.
Kurt Brown: The Kiss
That kiss I failed to give you.
How can you forgive me?
Tony Hoagland: Sweet Ruin
Maybe that is what he was after,
my father, when he arranged, ten years ago,
to be discovered in a mobile home
with a woman named Roxanne, an attractive,
recently divorced masseuse.
Video: A Kind Favor
On the magical coast of Central California, a grandmother reflects on a life filled with art, love, and tragedy.
Kristofer Collins: Trying to Read Levis at Drag Brunch 9.28.24
Yes, here is the late style of fire. Here is the burning
and the beauty of the thing engulfed.
Later I will not lack for poetry and my wife and I
will scorch the sheets.
Video: Eternity
Valerie and Alan have been married 57 years. Eternity is a look at love that lasts a lifetime, whether they like it or not.
Donna Spruijt-Metz: Birthday with Empty Hands
Today is our firstborn’s birthday—and you
are missing the party.
You’ve been pulled away on
death’s urgent business.
Al Ortolani: Two Poems
I imagined my mother by a fishpond
with garden rocks and submerged reeds,
a pool stocked with orange comets,
fantails, and spotted carp.
Robert Cording: Broken
Now, my brother’s fifty-year marriage
broken off as if their past was
an imposter that had been discovered.
And my best friend’s wife can’t find
the name for husband,
though he sits next to her.
Michele Battiste: 101st Note on Violence
Cast iron: iconic. Romantic
even. Well oiled. Seasoned. But far
too heavy. Fatal. Certainly. If wielded.
Determination or luck.
Dr. Noor Abdalla: Letter to My Husband, Mahmoud Khalil
As she prepares to welcome her first child with husband Mahmoud Khalil, Dr. Noor Abdalla writes to her husband one month after he was unlawfully detained for exercising his free speech rights.
Robert Walicki: Asleep
Another knuckle white morning,
in a neighborhood of slammed doors,
the salt covered cars and trucks in a haze,
saying prayers to the God of paychecks and Friday afternoons.
Video: Love in the Time of Migration
Ronny and Suly are in love. The only problem is that Ronny is in the US, while Suly is in Guatemala.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: The Partners
After thirty years, she knows
he will speak with his mouth full.
He knows her stomach will gurgle
in the silence before they sleep.
