Curiosity by Alastair Reid may have killed the cat; more likely the cat was just unlucky, or else curious to see what death was like, having no cause to go on licking paws, or fathering litter on litter of kittens, predictably. Nevertheless, to be curious is dangerous enough. To distrust what is always said, what […]

Finding Everything by Thomas R. Moore Did you find everything you were looking for? Julie, the magenta-haired checkout girl, asks, and no, I think, I didn’t find inner peace, or answers to several questions I’ve been mulling, like are we headed for nuclear war and does the rest of the world think America has gone […]

URN By Dorianne Laux I feel her swaying under the earth, deep in a basket of tree roots, their frayed silk keeping her calm, a carpet of grass singing Nearer my god to thee, oak branches groaning in wind coming up from the sea. We take on trust the dead are buried and gone, the […]

Living in the Body by Joyce Sutphen Body is something you need in order to stay on this planet and you only get one. And no matter which one you get, it will not be satisfactory. It will not be beautiful enough, it will not be fast enough, it will not keep on for days […]

Becoming by Jim Harrison Nowhere is it the same place as yesterday. None of us is the same person as yesterday. We finally die from the exhaustion of becoming. This downward cellular jubilance is shared by the wind, bugs, birds, bears and rivers, and perhaps the black holes in galactic space where our souls will […]

Living a Week Alone by Robert Bly After writing for a week alone in my old shack, I guide the car through Ortonville around midnight. The policeman talks intently in his swivel chair. The light from above shines on his bald head. Soon the car picks up speed again beside the quarries. The moonspot on […]

Passing Through (on my seventy ninth birthday) by Stanley Kunitz Nobody in the widow’s household ever celebrated anniversaries. In the secrecy of my room I would not admit I cared that my friends were given parties. Before I left town for school my birthday went up in smoke in a fire at City Hall that […]

The Long Boat by Stanley Kunitz When his boat snapped loose from its mooring, under the screaking of the gulls, he tried at first to wave to his dear ones on shore, but in the rolling fog they had already lost their faces. Too tired even to choose between jumping and calling, somehow he felt […]

The Layers BY STANLEY KUNITZ I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my […]

The years we lived in Cambridge by June Beisch first, in the apartment on the Charles River where the sycamores shed their skins to reveal a patched nakedness, a pied sensuality, then high up on the sixth floor in a grand apartment filled with English antiques and a grand piano. But when we found the […]