Ellen Bass
Ellen Bass lives in Santa Cruz, California, and is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent book of poetry is titled Indigo. The boy in her poem in this issue is now a father, so she has another precious creature to worry about in this endangered world.
— From February 2023Winter Solstice
The longest night of the year and I’m awake / in an overheated apartment on the Upper West Side. / I roll over and over like a rotisseried hen / while Janet’s breath softly rises and falls / and our son sleeps soundly on the floor, / his broken leg silently knitting bone to bone.
January 2006In Praise Of Four-Letter Words
We yell shit / when the egg carton slips / and the ivory globes / splatter on blue tile. / And when someone leaves you / bruised as a dropped pear, you spit / that fucker, fucking bastard, motherfucker.
December 2004