Baruch November: A Gift in the Shallows of the Sea
One night, on Riis Beach,
years ago, I suddenly
proposed to your mother
in the moonlight
Video: Hair Tie, Egg, Homework Books
As a model student in her elementary school, 11-year-old Lin Yuqi is assigned to give a speech about her family at the Parent’s Meeting tonight. But after Lin finds out that she shares the same secret with a mischievous classmate, she starts to have second thoughts.
Desne A. Crossley: O Rosie Girl
it was one thing for a white man to bed a black woman, but unthinkable that he would marry her. And it was commonplace for a black woman to be forced to open her legs to her employer or his sons. But Martha married white and returned home with the man!
Wally Swist: Three Poems for Tevis
I discover what remains
is the light that shines through
Tony Gloeggler: Some of the Things
Bean once told me, he never
hit a woman, as if it was a big
accomplishment.
James Davis May: Out Too Far
His wife, he’ll find out later, is worried
he hates them. How to tell her
that he sometimes doesn’t know how
he’s ended up in bed?
Wally Swist: The Caregiver
the depth of bad
feeling is in proportion
to how good we are
Valerie Bacharach: Chaos
There is no word for parents who have lost a child. Our language is chaotic. We are not widowed or orphaned. We are without, we are incomplete.
James Davis May: Hot Sex
she asks him,
resigned panic in her voice, Did you
slice one of those serranos into the guac?
Song of Songs, Canticles 1-8
I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys[….]
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
Elizabeth Gargano: Why We Should Try Talking to the Dead
After my father’s death, my mother kept talking to him.
Carol Frost: Scorn
How had they not been wounded? And wounded they’d convalesced in the same rooms
and bed.
Wayne Karlin: Because You Are Not Here
Because you are not here
you are always here
Carol Frost: Now Soon
Father and mother time to rise up put away the dark
give back to him more than he can ever use give what is
not his to have what he never knew he knows and all he feels
