Wedding Cake by Naomi Shihab Nye Once on a plane a woman asked me to hold her baby and disappeared. I figured it was safe, our being on a plane and all. How far could she go? She returned one hour later, having changed her clothes and washed her hair. I didn’t recognize […]
MoreTime for the Third Annual Valentine’s Day Poem Elfing. (If you’re looking for more love poems, you can check out previous Valentine’s Day posts in 2013 and 2012.) Coincidentally, just as I was sitting down to work on this post, I got a Valentine in the mail. I can’t think of the last […]
MoreBlow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind by William Shakespeare Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh-ho, […]
MoreThe Morning Baking by Carolyn Forche Grandma, come back, I forgot How much lard for these rolls Think you can put yourself in the ground Like plain potatoes and grow in Ohio? I am damn sick of getting fat like you Think you can lie through your Slovak? Tell filthy stories […]
MoreIt was a season of near disasters. Two weeks before Christmas I lost my aunt’s pearls, a graduated strand of Mikimoto beauties which her husband had brought back from Japan after WWII. Just as I was getting ready to confess, that same aunt had a fall and landed in the hospital. She recovered, the pearls […]
MoreIf I measured my value in the number of Christmas cards I’ve received this year, I’d be having a Charlie Brown “I got rocks” kind of feeling right now. But the depressing emptiness of my Christmas card holder lost its sting when I opened my email yesterday. My friend Trish Rawlings, artist, writer, and frequent […]
MoreSmart bloggers use their site stats to figure out how to attract more readers. I’m not smart that way (or I’m too lazy to figure out how to be smart that way), but I still love my site stats. It’s fun at the end of the day to see how many visitors I’ve had, how […]
MoreFirst, an apology to anyone eating when they read my last post. Several people told me they mis-read “Bloody Bowls” as “Bloody Bowels.” I missed that somehow when I was coming up with a title. Now Bloody Bowels is all I see. Apologies to Laura Kasischke as well. No poet would want her poem associated […]
MoreKitchen Song by Laura Kasischke The white bowls in the orderly cupboards filled with nothing. The sound of applause in running water. All those who’ve drowned in oceans, all who’ve drowned in pools, in ponds, the small family together in the car hit head on. The pantry full of lilies, […]
MoreCuba by Paul Muldoon My eldest sister arrived home that morning In her white muslin evening dress. ‘Who the hell do you think you are Running out to dances in next to nothing? As though we hadn’t enough bother With the world at war, if not at an end.’ My father was pounding the […]
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