Sleeping with You by Ellen Bass Is there anything more wonderful? After we have floundered through our separate pain we come to this. I bind myself to you, like otters wrapped in kelp, so the current will not steal us as we sleep. Through the night we turn together, rocked in the shallow surf, pebbles polished by the sea. This wonderful poem was published in Ellen Bass' book, Mules of Love (BOA Editions, 2002). And yes, of course I love the title of this book! You can buy i

On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs by Renée Nicole Macklin Good i want back my rocking chairs, solipsist sunsets, & coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of cockroaches.   i’ve donated bibles to thrift stores (mashed them in plastic trash bags with an acidic himalayan salt lamp— the post-baptism bibles, the ones plucked from street corners from the meaty hands of zealots, the dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind):   rememb

Song of the Wonderful Surprise by Kelly Cherry Start with the fact of space; fill it up with snow. There will be snow in the sky, snow on the ground, snow in the mysterious courtyards. You taste snow's tang, smell snow, feel snow on your face. If you walk forever, you will not come to a place with no snow, but one day, looking around, you will find a green apple hanging from a spray of snow. I promised you a cheerier poem, and here it is! The poet, Kelly Cherry, is the autho

Sober Song by Barton Sutter Farewell to the starlight in whiskey, So long to the sunshine in beer. The booze made me cocky and frisky But worried the man in the mirror. Goodnight to the moonlight in brandy, Adieu to the warmth of the wine. I think I can finally stand me Without a glass or a stein. Bye-bye to the balm in the vodka, Ta-ta to the menthol in gin. I'm trying to do what I ought to, Rejecting that snake medicine. I won't miss the blackouts and vomit, The accidents

Hold your breath: a song of climate change by Bob Hicok The water’s rising but we’re not drowning yet. When we’re drowning we’ll do something. When we’re on our roofs. When we’re deciding between saving the cute baby or the smart baby. When there aren’t enough helicopters or news crews to circle over everyone. When sharks are in the streets. When people are dying. When people with wine cellars are dying. We’ll build dams and dikes, put stilts on our V-8s and golf courses, cu

The Word Plum by Helen Chasin The word plum  is delicious pour and push, luxury of self-love, and savoring murmur full in the mouth and falling like fruit taut skin pierced, bitten, provoked into juice, and tart flesh question and reply, lip and tongue of pleasure. This poem appeared in the 1968 collection Coming Close and Other Poems, which was published as the winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets of that year. The series publishes a poet's first book and uses, of cou

I Go Back to May 1937 by Sharon Olds I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges, I see my father strolling out under the ochre sandstone arch, the    red tiles glinting like bent plates of blood behind his head, I see my mother with a few light books at her hip standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks, the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its sword-tips aglow in the May air, they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,    they are kids,

Lighting Up in the Bomb Shelter by Celia Lawren We didn’t care that missiles in Cuba were aimed at our homes.  We were twelve-year-old girls running barefoot through wet summer grass in the dark, headed for a slumber party in the bomb shelter. Cinder block cavern carved into basement corner, walls lit up in buttercup yellow― a curious Cold War feng shui conceived for a home economics project by my sister, It was packed with Free World amenities:   central air and heat, r