Issue: 2013

My grandmother shows me my first yellow rose, pale – called Moonlight Glow – which she tends by the stone wall beyond the old, old house. I shut tight my eyes to see us both in the afternoon light. There’s a tale of Bereft in that house which doesn’t y … Continue Reading

I am sorry, mi amore Platanus; all the trees hanging over the river on the corner, sweet locust and sycamore marching up the steep stream bed to escape the rising tide. I didn’t save you when propane tanks, popping up like otters, played in the river’s … Continue Reading

Like—who?—a Zennist Who is lit up by a chunk of the mundane— Shinkichi Takahashi eternally burning seeing the baby’s Turd afloat in the communal bath— I’m walking past the greyhounds’ owners’ house When a tinkling chord from their portico Boards me. I … Continue Reading

When I was young, my friend said, I have a geographical tongue – and opened wide to let me examine a map cracked deep into pink sponge, roads laid out in the whale-belly of her mouth. At the same time, my fingers would go numb, turn white. I rubbed the … Continue Reading

A few weeks ago, I sat in the Fresh Side in Amherst, ruminating over the tea choices. Local author and professor of creative writing at Bard College, Jedediah Berry, was meeting me there to talk about writing and his very successful novel The Manual of … Continue Reading

In those days change was law. After the day’s lawn faced the sky blue speech, Or its parade of clouds rolling like floats east, It looked up at one or two stars, Bordered by the two darkening maples and one big willow. The lawn had no eyes, but the diz … Continue Reading