Lament by Louise Gluck Suddenly, after you die, those friends who never agreed about anything agree about your character. They’re like a houseful of singers rehearsing the same score: you were just, you were kind, you lived a fortunate life. No harmony. No counterpoint. Except they’re not performers; real tears are shed. […]
Moreonly the crossing counts by C.D. Wright It’s not how we leave one’s life. How go off the air. You never know do you. You think you’re ready for anything; then it happens, and you’re not. You’re really not. The genesis of an ending, nothing but a feeling, a slow movement, the dusting […]
MoreGrass by Carl Sandburg Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work— I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and […]
MoreDisposal by W.d. Snodgrass The unworn long gown, meant for dances She would have scarcely dared attend, Is fobbed off on a friend— Who can’t help wondering if it’s spoiled But thinks, well, she can take her chances. We roll her spoons up like old plans Or failed securities, seal their case, […]
MoreI went to my favorite cemetery (doesn’t everyone have one?), a hilly retreat in northern Michigan, and there I left a handful of death-related poems. I’ll feature them one by one, beginning with Theodore Roethke’s “Elegy for Jane. I leaned the poem against a stone arm, nestled in some stone greenery. Elegy for Jane […]
MoreSudden by Nick Flynn If it had been a heart attack, the newspaper might have used the word massive, as if a mountain range had opened inside her, but instead it used the word suddenly, a light coming on in an empty room. The telephone fell from my shoulder, a […]
MoreTo Luck by W.S. Merwin In the cards and at the bend in the road we never saw you in the womb and in the crossfire in the numbers whatever you had your hand in which was everything we were told never to put our faith in you to bow to you humbly after […]
MoreA Jacquard Shawl by Ted Kooser A pattern of curly acanthus leaves, and woven into one corner in blue block letters half an inch tall: MADE FROM WOOL FROM SHEEP KILLED BY DOGS. 1778. As it is with jacquards, the design reverses to gray on blue when you turn it over, and the words run […]
MoreThings by Fleur Adcock There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public. There are worse things than these miniature betrayals, committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things than not being able to sleep for thinking about them. It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in and stand […]
MoreThe Door by Franz Wright Going to enter the aged horizontal cellar door (the threshing leaves, the greenish light of the approaching storm) you suddenly notice you’re opening the cover of an enormous book. One that’s twice as big as you are— but you know all about that: […]
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