Aug 06
Never to Dream of Spiders by Audre Lorde Time collapses between the lips of strangers my days collapse into a hollow tubesoon implodes against nowlike an iron wallmy eyes are blocked with rubblea smear of perspectivesblurring each horizonin the breathless precision of silenceone word is made. Once the renegade flesh was gone fall air lay …
Aug 05
Black Oaks by Mary Oliver Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary, or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance and comfort. Not one can manage a single sound, though the blue jays carp and whistle all day in the branches, without the push of the wind. But to …
Aug 04
Why We Must Struggle by Kay Ryan If we have not struggledas hard as we canat our strongesthow will we sensethe shape of our lossesor know what sustainsus longest or namewhat change costs us,saying how strangeit is that one sectorof the self can step infor another in trouble,how loss activatesa latent double, howwe can feedas …
Aug 03
After the Long Enduring (for Charles) by May Sarton After the long enduring,The agony of staying aliveWith AIDS inside you, You who noticed everythingWith wide-open eyes,The veins in a leaf or a wrist,Ladybird on a grass blade at rest,They told me, “Charles is blind.”“Blind,” is what they said. Remember the salamanderYou found in the bird …
Aug 02
Toy Boat (for Tamir Rice) by Ocean Vuong yellow plasticblack sea eye-shaped shardon a darkened map no shores nowto arrive—or departno wind butthis waiting whichmoves you as if the secondscould be entered& never left toy boat—oarless each wavea green lampoutlasted toy boattoy leaf droppedfrom a toy treewaiting waitingas if the sp-arrowsthinning above youare notalready piercedby …
