Epivir, d4T, Crixivan Epivir, d4T, Crixivan
The new disease came, but not without warning. The drugs were a toxic combo that kept the sick going another year. I loved how you talked in your sleep about free will. Your clothe…
Feb 16, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Henri Cole
The Muse of History The Muse of History
I. CLIO “let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth” The past’s fantasia cannot hold or let us go. Flycatcher catching itself in the pool’s glint gaze, Samarkand where Tamerlane…
Feb 9, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Cynthia Zarin
Late Afternoon Late Afternoon
(for Alice Truax) Three pairs of binoculars but which one works— why do we say “pair” when we mean one? What we see is what we are—the swimming pool’s black shadow eye-mote, a mole…
Feb 9, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Cynthia Zarin
Anxiety Anxiety
Cat claws on the heart’s tin roof, each breath a locomotive running off the rails, the switching signal’s warning rat-a-tat, I’m up too early, the alphabet net snags and tears, mot…
Feb 9, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Cynthia Zarin
That It Might Save, or Drown Them That It Might Save, or Drown Them
I have seen how the earth erodes differently from the way that trust does. Likewise, I know what it means, to come to love all over again the very mistakes I also know, looking bac…
Feb 2, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Carl Phillips
Blue Wash on Linen Canvas, Believed Unfinished Blue Wash on Linen Canvas, Believed Unfinished
And he woke again like a thief undetected, invisible therefore, and therefore free. The bronze horse’s hoof stood raised for apparently ever about to trample beneath it the cross o…
Feb 2, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Carl Phillips
Silver Spoon Ode Silver Spoon Ode
I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and a silver knife, and a silver fork. I would complain about it—the spoon was not greasy, it tasted like braces, my shining access to c…
Jan 19, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Sharon Olds
Letting My Hair Down Letting My Hair Down
And then my wry neck got so wry— chicken-neck wring-wry—I had to spend time with my hair down, like roots into the ground of the air, my visible shock, my “terror,” my “horror.” Ho…
Jan 19, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Sharon Olds
It’s the World Committing Suicide Said One Mom It’s the World Committing Suicide Said One Mom
No it’s murder, said another. I think people don’t care because it’s only animals dying, said Miriam. a life spent making marks was what she had been doing she wondered if this…
Jan 5, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Rachel Zucker
I Can Barely Stand To I Can Barely Stand To
today at the Louvre I took students to see Venus de Milo with her pert exquisite breasts & read them Emma Lazarus’ poem to grief-struck Heinrich Heine we talked ekphrastic thi…
Jan 5, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Rachel Zucker