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Free by Virgil Suarez When we first arrived in the United States from Franco's Spain, everything we encountered or bought had "free" written on it. The boxes of cereal spoke of a free mystery surprise, the junk mail came bundled, and somehow that word sang to us. My father and I got wise—the word became cheap, untrustworthy, hollow. Having been fooled before, we knew what "free" really meant. We learned lessons the hard way; nothing free ever came so easily, but my mother—

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

American Sonnet for the New Year by Terrance Hayes Things got terribly ugly incredibly quickly  Things got ugly embarrassingly quickly  actually Things got ugly unbelievably quickly  honestly Things got ugly seemingly infrequently  initially Things got ugly ironically usually  awfully carefully Things got ugly unsuccessfully  occasionally Things got ugly mostly painstakingly  quietly seemingly Things got ugly beautifully  infrequently Things got ugly sadly especially  freque

Snow, Fall by Judith Arcana That one time you hit the baby, that one time out on the street when the bus was so late and then didn't come and the snow started falling; that time you lifted all your food in bags, paper handles dampening and she kept holding onto your leg, pulling your coat and you couldn't carry her too while the flakes came thick and wet and faster. That’s the time you remember, not all the times you didn't, all those times when you didn't hit the baby, times

Christmas 1963 by Joseph Enzweiler Because we wanted much that year and had little. Because the winter phone for days stayed silent that would call our father back to work, and he kept silent too with our mother, fearfully proud before us. Because I was young that morning in gray light untouched on the rug and our gifts were so few, propped along the furniture, for a second my heart fell, then saw how large they made the spaces between them to take the place of less. Because

Trains in Winter by Jay Meek Over first coffee, I ride the diner and look out at snow fallen deep in gorges.  At winter stations, a locomotive can freeze to the rails, and a mountain night turn so cold it makes the rails snap.  Some trains in heavy snow overtake a moose herd along a roadbed, then sweep a few cows into a ravine, or maybe a bull crossing a trestle will go on through, catching his legs between the ties.  I've seen icebergs melting in a Newfoundland cove, their

The morning is clouded and the birds are hunched, More cold than hungry, more numb than loud, This crisp, Arizona shore, where desert meets The coming edge of the winter world. It is a cold news in stark announcement, The myriad stars making bright the black, As if the sky itself had been snowed upon. But the stars—all those stars, Where does the sure noise of their hard work go? These plugs sparking the motor of an otherwise quiet sky, Their flickering work everywhere in a w

My Love Is Black by DéLana R. A. Dameron You might say fear is a predictable emotion & I might agree. Whenever my husband leaves for his graveyard shift, when he prepares to walk out into the abyss of black sky, I am afraid tonight will be the night I become a widow. I don’t want to love like this. But here we are: walking hand in hand in our parkas down the avenues & he pulls away from me. I might be in some dreamy place, thinking of the roast chicken we just had, the cocon

Be Safe by Laura Cherry . . . for Molly Fisk It’s a renegade blessing, a luckless charm, an impossible command, a petition with one signature, a spangled net of wishes thrown over the precious other, an unwitting revelation: your well-being is needed for my own. The creek rises and the brown water bubbles. The wildfire leaps the road to approach the houses. Someone is shooting in the mall or dragging women from the jogging path. The crowd is drunk and growing angry. Fr

No More Birthdays by Hal Sirowitz Don’t swing the umbrella in the store, Mother said. There are all these glass jars of spaghetti sauce above your head that can fall on you, & you can die. Then you won’t be able to go to tonight’s party, or go to the bowling alley tomorrow. And instead of celebrating your birthday with soda & cake, we’ll have anniversaries of your death with tea & crackers. And your father and i won’t be able to eat spaghetti anymore, because the marinara sa

Let Us Now Praise Prime Numbers by Helen Spalding Let us now praise prime numbers With our fathers who begat us: The power, the peculiar glory of prime numbers Is that nothing begat them, No ancestors, no factors, Adams among the multiplied generations. None can foretell their coming. Among the ordinal numbers They do not reserve their seats, arrive unexpected. Along the lines of cardinals They rise like surprising pontiffs, Each absolute, inscrutable, self-elected. In the b

Bars Fight by Lucy Terry Prince August, twas the twenty-fifth, Seventeen houndred forty-six, The Indians did in ambush lay, Some very valiant men to slay Twas nigh unto Sam Dickinson's mill, The Indians there five men did kill. The names of whom I'll not leave out, Samuel Allen like a hero foute, And though he was so brave and bold, His face no more shall we behold. Eleazer Hawks was killed outright, Before he had time to fight, Before he did the Indians see, Was shot and ki

Duplex by Jericho Brown A poem is a gesture toward home. 
It makes dark demands I call my own.                Memory makes demands darker than my own:
               My last love drove a burgundy car. My first love drove a burgundy car.
 He was fast and awful, tall as my father.                Steadfast and awful, my tall father
              Hit hard as a hailstorm. He’d leave marks. Light rain hits easy but leaves its own mark 
Like the sound of a mother weeping ag