Planting Tulips
“we reenact old rites, rise as supplicants / on the cold ground of November, plant / our small intentions which will in time // become silken frame, ruffled apricot”
Poetry
We are so grateful to all of our partner-poets for sharing their work with us—please enjoy their beautiful words in our Featured Poetry catalogue.
Poem for the God of Small Mercies
“Now, as usual, it is 3 a.m, and I am making / chokeberry jam. The ingredients: chokeberries, / pectin, sugar. The approximation of a prayer: any / violence made sweet.”
In It
“That is what poems do they call everything by a name and suddenly little pieces of metal scraping / against metal. Gutshot. Name it.”
IF I COULD WRITE YOU A HAPPIER ENDING
By Mary Foulk
“my squinting eyes search / any compass point / to return to / after your death—my own body / crawling towards that blue black”
A Clean Scuba Mask Needs Spit
By W.M. Lobko
“Happy Birthday. A nebula based on your eye // exploding explodes far above on the surface. / It doesn’t bother the sea life.”
The Sky Didn’t Fall
By Betsy Brown
“When I think of you, / I wish I could fix things. I think of radios, // stars that shot and fell. Dented spotlights.”
Escaping the Family Legacy
By Lorrie Ness
“thinness compressed her body into braille. / at the pool she read herself by touch // & drank diet coke / inside a fairy ring of bottles.”
Veterinary Practice
By Grace Wagner
“He shows you how // to slit the skin, open the abdomen of a cow / and reach in, extract the calf. First he takes off his wedding ring.”
Esto Perpetua
“Listen—I know nothing of America. / I am told missionaries brought the / potato. I am taught about varieties of wheat.”