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Culture and Society
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.
January 2024
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.
December 2023Stranger Kin
I don’t recall now if he barked, if he made a sound. How did it happen, that the rest came? They must have been summoned somehow. But it so happened that another dog appeared, lumbering toward us, followed by another, and a third and fourth, until there were five dogs gathered on the rocks. Five huge Istanbul dogs.
December 2023
A Thousand Words
A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.
December 2023
Macho Baby
I know that what we call hate is sometimes love that was pushed under a rock, love deprived of light and water. “Tell me to what you pay attention,” writes the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset in his book Man and Crisis, “and I will tell you who you are.” How much love is putrefying inside boys this very moment, starved for nourishment?
December 2023
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.
December 2023Basements
I was considered “good,” considered a “good influence.” It amazed me — like the cool feeling of Marshall’s tongue on my labia had amazed me — that I could possess all of these qualities; that I could be both warm and cold, virtuous and defiant; and that someone could love me for all of it.
December 2023
Abandon All Expectations
The fish is now thrashing at the surface. Unlike every other captain I have seen, Cuervo uses a net, not a gaff, to bring it aboard. He has enough experience to know that, by the time a full-grown yellowtail is brought to the boat, it has essentially fought itself to death. Rich lets the captain take over, and Cuervo handles the marvelous creature with a tenderness that has been missing from most of my charter-fishing experiences.
December 2023
Under Fire
Thor Hanson on How Animals and Plants are Adapting to a Warming World
We’ve got changes playing out now with astounding rapidity. Biologists can see natural selection occurring over the course of a field season. . . . Studying these adaptations can help us identify the issues that are most important and the species that need the most help. This may not make us worry less, but it can help us worry smarter.
December 2023
