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Poetry

Poetry

Noah’s Wife

Noah, his swelled head, his ego larger than the ark, his crazy / self-promoting savior mania. Because of him we dropped / everything, sank our fortune in cypress wood, and every / filthy creature we couldn’t trap we had to buy with our last coin.

By Wendy Drexler February 2024
Poetry

Mountain Flowers

When I was sixteen, / pickup truck, load of hay, / there was nothing I’d rather see / from the window than women’s underwear / hanging on a backyard clothesline.

By Robert Cooke February 2024
Poetry

What If Pain No Longer Ordered the Narrative

She’ll replace me with another beloved one day, as children do, and if I don’t let her, I’ll have failed, a different failure than those nights she brings me books to read when I’m too tired.

By Erin Hoover January 2024
Poetry

Spring Garden Street

I had left her sitting on the front stoop / and crossed the street / to light my cigarette—April / in the early evening, / the pear trees with their arms full / of white blossoms, comfortless as ghosts.

By Grady Chambers January 2024
Poetry

I Was Carrying a Velvet Wingback through the Streets of Houston

Who isn’t, at twenty-three, sexy? In never-been-kissed / cutoffs with buzzed hair. Did I even have a beard yet? / I looked like the virgin I was—was, at least, in all / the interesting ways. “Chicken,” they would’ve said / back then.

By Benjamin Grossberg January 2024
Poetry

Last Bath

It hasn’t happened yet: the awkward bloom / of my children’s bodies, the bathroom pin-lock / pushed in, the steady stream of marathon showers, / bolts of thick steam all shadowy blue.

By Jared Harél December 2023
Poetry

Lumps of Coal

He was ten and drove a team of mules / through the shadows in mine shafts, / pulling a wagonload of coal / that glinted in the carbide light / anchored to his cotton cap.

By Robert Cooke December 2023
Poetry

Key Marco Cat

Legs folded / under its body, / the figure sits / straight up, alert, / an incarnation / of stillness, of eyes / looking everywhere / at once. I look at / this possibility of me/ rooted in the dark, / invisibly still.

By Robert Cording December 2023
Poetry

This Little Bit I Am Trying To Hold

Poems About Departures

Listen to the poets in this month’s special poetry section read their poems about leaving and letting go. To listen, click the play button below each title in the article.

 

I will leave you, / and I will / leave the sudden // darkness of afternoon thunderstorms / and I will leave / the rain and its patience in shaping mountains

from “I Will Leave,” by Michael Bazzett

 

I am here to translate my father’s death / into fruit. Something that can be held. To bring / it up to your lips the way I spooned strawberry / yogurt up to his and said to him the word “Eat.” / There was no use, in the end. There was no hunger.

from “I Did What I Could to Keep This,” by Peter Markus

 

Tonight, because all matter is dissolving, you & I / are being gradually undressed by the universe — // silk & wool molecules mingling with cells / rising from skin like souls

from “Everything,” by Terry Lucas

By Michael Bazzett November 2023
Poetry

The Patron Saint Of Airport Sparrows

Now that I make the frequent arrivals / and departures of a child who grew up / and moved away from his parents, / who grow older and sicker and smaller / between visits, I feel too sad to read / while I wait for boarding to start

By James May November 2023
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