Unsolicited Survey

Phillis Levin

The Fish in the Window

Robert Bly

Life in Fluxus

Arthur C. Danto

Green Bee

Sharon Olds

Seducing the Sparrow (poem)

Why must the noble rose
bristle before it blooms, and why
must the frost declare
allegiance to the dew?

Don’t tell me the robin’s
forlorn invitation
could not be denied.
I’ve heard the magpie’s lies.

Outside my window,
twenty-seven juncos
consort in a cedar tree,
fat and happy to be free

of all desire–ah, but
that’s not true! See
how they dance and turn
when I throw out the seed.

Sam Hamill

My Crow, Your Crow

Peter Cooley

Orient Expressed: Imagism

Grace Schulman

House Finches

John Poch

Rereading Old Writing

David Ferry

Nocturnal

It is always among sleepers we walk.
We walk in their dreams. None of us
Knows what he is as he walks
In the dream of another. Tell me my name
. Your tongue is blurred, honeyed with error,
Your sleep’s truth murmurs its secret.

Tell me your name. Out at the edge,
Out in the cold, out in the cold
That came into the house in your clothes
The wind’s hands hold onto nothing,
Moaning, over the edge of the cliff
The wind babble unintelligible.

David Ferry