Joseph Bathanti: High Mass
Winter Sundays,
when my father was on strike from steel,
he and my mother woke late,
then rose and prepared for high mass at Saints Peter and Paul.
Joseph Bathanti: Steady Daylight
Today in Heaven,
my father turned 105.
Finally working steady daylight
Edwin Arlington Robinson: Eros Turannos
She fears him, and will always ask
What fated her to choose him
Barbara Crooker: Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Paris
Nearly fifty years ago,
in the wreckage of my first marriage, I lit
a tall white taper, prayed that my husband
would return to himself, keep our family intact,
a prayer that disappeared in the dark vaults
Larry Levis: Family Romance
Abstaining clouds that passed, & kept
Their own counsel, we
Were different, we kept our own counsel.
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
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?
