Autumn Leaves by Marilyn Chin The dead piled up, thick, fragrant, on the fire escape. My mother ordered me again, and again, to sweep it clean. All that blooms must fall. I learned this not from the Tao,     but from high school biology. Oh, the contradictions of having a broom and not a dustpan! I swept the leaves down, down through the iron grille and let the dead rain over the Wong family’s patio. And it was Achilles Wong who completed the task.     We called her:...

Invocation by Helene Johnson Let me be buried in the rain In a deep, dripping wood, Under the warm wet breast of Earth Where once a gnarled tree stood. And paint a picture on my tomb With dirt and a piece of bough Of a girl and a boy beneath a round, ripe moon Eating of love with an eager spoon And vowing an eager vow. And do not keep my plot mowed smooth And clean as a spinster’s bed, But let the weed, the flower, the tree, Riotous, rampant, wild, and free, Grow high among

Boots by Rudyard Kipling We're foot—slog—slog—slog—sloggin' over Africa Foot—foot—foot—foot—sloggin' over Africa -- (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again!) There's no discharge in the war! Seven—six—eleven—five—nine-an'-twenty mile to-day Four—eleven—seventeen—thirty-two the day before -- (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again!) There's no discharge in the war! Don't—don't—don't—don't—look at what's in front of you. (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up a

My Papa's Waltz by Theordore Roethke The whiskey on your breath    Could make a small boy dizzy;    But I hung on like death:    Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans    Slid from the kitchen shelf;    My mother’s countenance    Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist    Was battered on one knuckle;    At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head    With a palm caked hard by dirt,    Then waltzed me off to bed 

A Word on Statistics by Wislawa Szymborska, Translated by Joanna Trzeciak Out of every hundred people those who always know better: fifty-two. Unsure of every step: almost all the rest. Ready to help, if it doesn't take long: forty-nine. Always good, because they cannot be otherwise: four—well, maybe five. Able to admire without envy: eighteen. Led to error by youth (which passes): sixty, plus or minus. Those not to be messed with: forty and four. Living in constant fear of

Motor Lodge             by John Drury   “So this is it, experience,” I thought, lugging tin buckets from the ice machines to rooms of real adults with cigarettes, mixed drinks in plastic cups, and proffered coins.   I reached out for their blessings, but the tips were nothing next to rumpled, unmade beds at four in the afternoon, women in slips and men in t-shirts while the TV played.   Down in the laundry room, I counted sheets, stunned by the musk that vanished in the wash,

In Defence of Adultery by Julia Copus We don't fall in love: it rises through us the way that certain music does-- whether a symphony or...

The Way It Ended by Gail White So time went by and they were middle-aged, 
which seemed a cruel joke that time had played 
 on two young...

Cherishing What Isn't by Jack Gilbert Ah, you three women whom I have loved in this long life, along with the few others. And the four I...