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.
Dawn Potter: Arcadia, 1939
warmth of bread baking, a cardinal alight in a branching
oak, white bed, linens floating in air, a table
laid in an arbor’s shade—
Paul Christensen: The Journey We All Must Take
When you’re a knee-scabbed, scruffy looking kid, a tree-climbing ruffian hanging from the neighbor’s crab apple tree and running away from some irate neighbor after soaping up his car windshield, on Halloween, you don’t know it but you are the unacknowledged expert of what it means to be living in your pre-pubescent body.
Carol Frost: Scorn
How had they not been wounded? And wounded they’d convalesced in the same rooms
and bed.
Michael Simms: Portrait of Unknown Couple
He sketched in charcoal
the arch of a shoulder
the movement of a hand
the woman’s head
turned and tilted slightly
toward the man
Adrienne Maree Brown: Murmurations | Love Looks Like Accountability
Racialized capitalism trains us to expect that some people fall through the cracks into unjust suffering; our cultural individualism tells us this is acceptable, as long as we aren’t the ones at the bottom.
Abayomi Animashaun: History Lesson
On the wall is a map of places, the so-called explorers
— Mungo Park and the rest of them —
Discovered. But did they know
Of my longing to kiss you tonight?
Anne C. Fowler: Talking with the Other
The opportunity to spend vast expanses of time talking with people with whom you strongly disagree, about the very issue you disagree on, is an unusual privilege, I would even say, a luxury.
Ruth L. Schwartz: Love Letters from the Late Edge
two women, neither of us young, one of us frankly old,
walking our joy like a large animal
around a city lake
Alison Luterman: A Woman Speaks of Marriages
I’ve known marriages like Niagaras, that splashed and thundered,
whose couples careened down them bravely, wearing only barrels.
Danielle DeTiberus: In the Middle of Fucking You, I Pause
Twenty years together and yet
You were new to me again.
Rachel Hadas: Smoke
Smoke from a massive fire was blowing across the river
into the city: lobbies of apartment buildings,
inner rooms of doctors’ offices.
Nina Clements: Singing Bowl Massage
You are on the table
but also floating
in the center
of a lake.
Vimeo: Viktor on the Moon
Viktor Leth, who has never been on a date, accidentally sits down at the wrong table with the slightly older and married Rebekka. This is the start of a weird and wild night for the two of them in which Viktor learns more about life and love than most people do in a lifetime
