Woman Alive And then I suddenly said, it’s good to be alive and I meant it, not in the way of the reckless but in the way a ban is lifted and then wrecked. I said, it’s good to be alive because it is good and in this offering of myself to you, I am […]
Poetry 99
Ann DeVilbiss: Spell for Empty Hands
Spell for Empty Hands I gave you riot and thunder, rest and feather. I gave you all the salt I had, marrow too. Blame the clouds for your fear of lightning and you are a fool. Don’t hate the dry grass for lack of rain, the endless sky for lack of horses. There’s no more […]
Ann DeVilbiss: Spell to Begin Again
Spell to Begin Again I wake with a black shroud draped over my head, because of windows, because the sun insists with its terrible heat. I unravel myself to the light, weak-knit as I am, spill my limbs onto the floor until they start to obey. Each hour is molasses, spooned into my maw by […]
Ann DeVilbiss: Spell to Cultivate Gentleness
Spell to Cultivate Gentleness Cull the petals from this year’s roses, until they rest in your palm, a flock of yellow lambs. Become quiet as the slip of blue trailing the skink as he runs to a calmer scrap of sun. Borrow the umber from the wheat and gild the barbed stalking of wild thorns. […]
David Rock: “Driving Through Idaho”
Driving through Idaho A good lottery knows a thing or two about your chances. Reservations. A skiff of snow just this side of Bliss. Approaching Fairfield on the after- noon-sunward side of Massacre Rocks. What better bluffs. That sultry Snake. Top 40 love songs blah blah, and politics aside, nothing beats giant windmills. . . […]
David Rock: “Just Gravy”
Just Gravy “Well that’s it. Everything else is gravy.” —Jericho Brown And God said, “Let there be gravy.” And it was just gravy. As good as gravy. Gravy was the whole telos of wisdom made flesh—God’s creatures, with or without their wings. And God said grace. And so we survive, some of us, for a […]