The Edges of Time by Kay Ryan

The Edges of Time by Kay Ryan It is at the edges that time thins. Time which had been dense and viscous as amber suspending intentions like bees unseizes them. A humming begins, apparently coming from stacks of put–off things or just in back. A racket of claims now, as time flattens. A glittering fan […]

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Pairs by Philip Booth

Pairs by Philip Booth Years now, good days more than half the year, they row late afternoons out through the harbor to the bell, a couple with gray hair, an old green rowboat. Given sun, their four oars, stroke by stroke, glint wet, so far away that even in light air their upwind voices barely […]

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Summer 2021 Cicadas by Ellen Steinbaum

Summer 2021 Cicadas by Ellen Steinbaum They’re my last cicadas, though who can be sure, of course. Given my age and their infrequent outings, like scheduled comets and eclipses, they could be penultimate, but most likely my concluding swarm. Every seventeen or thirteen years they come–both prime numbers, though I think they have a mathematics […]

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Curiosity by Alastair Reid

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 […]

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