I started this post on September 7, the day after the grand lady moved on to find out what’s next. I find myself certain that she wasn’t afraid, that she looked forward to a reunion with her husband Hugh and…
Poetry: The Armful
The Armful For every parcel I stoop down to seize I lose some other off my arms and knees, And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns, Extremes too hard to comprehend at once. Yet nothing I should care to…
Poetry: Highway Five Love Poem
Highway Five Love Poem for Anna –Ruth L. Schwartz From Dear Good Naked Morning This is a love poem for all the tomatoes spread out in the fields along Highway Five, their gleaming green and ruddy faces like a thousand…
Poetry: Valentine for Zephyr, Age 12
Valentine for Zephyr, Age 12 –Francette Cerulli From The Spirits Need to Eat The night before valentines are due, I take you to the movie about Vincent whose paintings you love. Too late I realize it’s a mistake. You knew…
Poetry: Love at First Sight
For my sambear Love at First Sight –Jennifer Maier From Dark Alphabet You always hear about it— a waitress serves a man two eggs over easy and she says to the cashier, That is the man I’m going to marry,…
Poetry: Failing and Flying
Failing and Flying –Jack Gilbert from Refusing Heaven Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew. It’s the same when love comes to an end, or the marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it…
Poetry: Jack + Judy
Jack + Judy –Doreen Fitzgerald From Cake: Selected Poems She was stuck on him like a three-cent stamp on a postcard showing a roadside diner shaped like a hat; stuck like a stool on a chrome stem waiting to swivel…
Poetry: Thus Spake the Mockingbird
Thus Spake the Mockingbird –Barbara Hamby From Babel The mockingbird says, Hallelujah, coreopsis, I make the day bright, I wake the night-blooming jasmine. I am the duodecimo of desperate love, the hocus-pocus passion flower of delirious retribution. You never saw…
Poetry: Benediction
Benediction –Stanley Kunitz From The Collected Poems God banish from your house The fly, the roach, the mouse That riots in the walls Until the plaster falls; Admonish from your door The hypocrite and liar; No shy, soft, tigrish fear…
Poetry: Things You Didn’t Put On Your Resume
Things You Didn’t Put On Your Resume –Joyce Sutphen How often you got up in the middle of the night when one of your children had a bad dream, and sometimes you woke because you thought you heard a cry…