Alexis Rhone Fancher: Snake/Holding Things Down
I’m going back to Lowe’s to get a bigger, longer snake, my lover says. Get a king snake, I whisper in his ear. I reach between his legs, cop a feel. Yeah, sure, he says, rolling his eyes. A king snake. He gives my roving hand a squeeze. Or would you prefer a boa constrictor?
Alexis Rhone Fancher: Night Sky
We’re arguing about the stars again. It’s midnight when he pulls/drags me outside into the frozen dark. Look up! he says.
Brenna R. Hassett: The Evolution of the Human Pair Bond
Despite our very human flair for variety and adaptation, most societies around the world set a pair-bonded couple at the heart of how their members reproduce.
Yehoshua November: Notes on Marriage
It was dusk, their home brightly lit.
Through the window,
I glimpsed the gray-haired man lifting his wife
into a dance.
Naomi Shihab Nye: Little Farmer
how right he was about slowness,
the path of sunlight through leaves,
how dirt has always befriended me,
Scott Silsbe: Listening to Music with You
And there’s something about your presence
that changes the music—makes it more,
makes it greater than, enhances it, I guess.
Richard Feynman: Letter to Arline
I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you.
James Davis May: Hot Sex
she asks him,
resigned panic in her voice, Did you
slice one of those serranos into the guac?
David Hassler: Spaghetti Dinners
I pour Lynn a glass of wine and make a toast: “To our future life together.” We stare into each other’s eyes and smile. Unable to wait any longer, I ask Lynn if she will marry me. She says yes, and I begin to cry. I am here, in this place, with a beautiful woman who loves me.
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.
Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum: Heaven-Fire
The boy is not my blood
Though “Son” is the only name I have for “He-
Who-Will-Dance-To-Just-About-Anything,”
Erma Bombeck: Housework Can Kill You If Done Right
I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.
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
