The Strangers by Patrick Hicks After we picked you up at the Omaha airport, we clamped you into a new car seat and listened to you yowl beneath the streetlights of Nebraska. Our hotel suite was plump with toys, ready, we hoped, to soothe you into America. But for a solid hour you watched the door, shrieking, Umma, the Korean word for mother. Once or twice you glanced back at us and, in this netherworld where a door home had slammed shut forever, your terrified eyes paced bet

September 1918 by Amy Lowell This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight; The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves, And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows. Under a tree in the park, Two little boys, lying flat on their faces, Were carefully gathering red berries To put in a pasteboard box. Some day there will be no war, Then I shall take out this afternoon And turn

Morning Song by Sylvia Plath Love set you going like a fat gold watch. The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry Took its place among the elements. Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue. In a drafty museum, your nakedness Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls. I’m no more your mother Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow Effacement at the wind’s hand. All night your moth-breath Flickers among the flat pink r

The Raft by Erica Reid I approach every poem I write as if I’m going to save a life. —Aaron Abeyta It was no small feat to locate a phone book—but I did, and Angela Winston from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, I have chosen your name at random and I have come to save your life. I recognize that it is a huge swing on my part to assume that you need saving—but then we are all drowning these days, are we not? Don’t you wake up feeling you’ve reached your limit, that the worst must be past,

Desert by Patricia Hooper Where there's a river, that tastes of direction. Where there's an orchard, that says survival. Where there's a desert, that changes everything, as if earth hadn't wanted to fill only her own need. This very compact poem was published in the October 1971 issue of Poetry. The photo above was taken by me in the vicinity of Goldfield, Nevada a few years ago. I love this poem, not just its compactness, but its directness. Rivers give directions. Orchards

The Mower by Philip Larkin The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found a hedgehog jammed up against the blades, killed. It had been in the long grass. I had seen it before, and even fed it, once. Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world unmendably. Burial was no help: Next morning I got up and it did not. The first day after a death, the new absence is always the same; we should be careful of each other, we should be kind while there is still time. I know peo

Numbers by Mary Cornish I like the generosity of numbers. The way, for example, they are willing to count anything or anyone: two pickles, one door to the room, eight dancers dressed as swans. I like the domesticity of addition— add two cups of milk and stir— the sense of plenty: six plums on the ground, three more falling from the tree. And multiplication’s school of fish times fish, whose silver bodies breed beneath the shadow of a boat. Even subtraction is never loss, jus

Imagine This by Freya Manfred When you’re young, and in good health, you can imagine living in New York City, or Nepal, or in a tree beyond the moon, and who knows who you’ll marry: a millionaire, a monkey, a sea captain, a clown. But the best imaginers are the old and wounded, who swim through ever narrowing choices, dedicating their hearts to peace, a stray cat, a bowl of homemade vegetable soup, or red Mountain Ash berries in the snow. Imagine this: only one leg and lucky

Although the Wind by Izumi Shikibu, translated by Jane Hirshfield Although the wind blows terribly here, the moonlight also leaks between the roof planks of this ruined house. This poem is, of course, untitled in its original form; traditional Japanese poetry is not titled. And this poet is the epitome of traditional--she was born about 974 and died (we believe) in 1034, and she is considered to be one of the greatest poets of her era. This poem is somewhat unusual for Shiki