We use cookies to improve our services and remember your choices for future visits. For more information see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
We use cookies to improve our services and remember your choices for future visits. For more information see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Still, I love that line by poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “A good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude.” But my wife is not familiar with Rilke, and solving our difficulties is not a matter of my explaining things to her. I’ve been doing that for three years, in two languages, and neither of us has changed.
By Poe BallantineFebruary 2008On the screened-in porch of my in-laws’ house in central Massachusetts, I am reading a book. Sipping from the tumbler in my hand helps fight the unseasonable chill in the June air. The ice cubes are shrinking, diluting the alcohol, and clinking every time I raise the glass to my lips.
By Matthew M. QuickDecember 2007I am opposed to abortion as a birth-control method. At the same time, I ask myself how it is that the Catholic Church can hold that all abortions are equally, gravely sinful at all times, but that death may be inflicted in other circumstances without always being equally, gravely sinful. The Church teaches that you may kill to punish, to defend yourself, or to defend the state, and you are not committing a sin. In areas where men are most often in charge of life — as they are in the justice system or the military — they may kill by the thousands, and the Church won’t say a word about it. But when a woman is in charge of that decision, as she is when it comes to abortion, the Church pronounces that it is always, under all circumstances, gravely immoral and deeply sinful.
By James KullanderJune 2007You said you thought the word was pure / to describe the moonlight above us / on our last night in boarding school, / when you and I broke the rules and slept / outside under a blanket of young summer.
— from “To My Lifelong Friend Going To Prison”
By Edwin RomondJune 2007You can almost tell when it’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door, because the knock is polite but loud at the same time, deferential but invested with the supposed authority of doing God’s work.
By Lois JudsonJune 2007I used to make ninety bucks an hour as a lawyer doing part-time legal research and writing — hateful work I was nevertheless grateful for, as for ten years it had supported me while I tried to make my way as a creative writer. I’d found the job by sending out résumés to lawyers listed in the yellow pages.
By Heather KingMay 2007A hundred-dollar bill, lemon cookies and a Wink soda, J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey
By Our ReadersApril 2007My father thought men who talked about being “saved” were weak, even feminine. Religion was the domain of women; he was too busy farming and working at the ceiling-tile factory to concern himself with salvation. My mother prayed and talked to me about God behind his back.
By Doug CrandellJanuary 2007She nodded a greeting to my husband and me, and then her gaze landed on the baby in my lap. Her hands came together in a loud clap that silenced our polite chatter, and she began to chant to my son in rhyming Spanish. He froze, his eyes widening to the size of quarters as she swept him from my arms.
By Krista BremerJanuary 2007Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
Subscribe Today