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Spring 1996
All the Beautiful Are Blameless
From the Autumn 1958 issue. Out of a dark into the dark she leaped Lightly this day. Heavy with prey, the evening skiffs are gone, And drowsy divers lift […]
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Summer 1994
Our Lady
In the final hour, our lady—Of the electric rosary, Of the highway, by then Of the snows mostly—was the man he’d always been really, though, yes, we’d sometimes forgotten. Still, […]
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Winter 1993
Central Standard Time
Down below, everywhere, allthe black skycaps have disappearedsince last time, last time being always,or at least your childhood of air. Gonelike that. At the curb, a mother overtips the new […]
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Winter 1993
leda 3: a personal note (re: visitations)
always pyrotechnics; stars spinning into phalluses of light, serpents promising sweetness, their forked tongues thick and erect, patriarchs of bird exposing themselves in the air. this skin is sick with […]
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Autumn 1992
Slaves
These are the years of the empty hands. And what were those just past, swift with the flash of alloyed hulls but carrying no cargo? Outside our lives, my mythical […]
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Spring 1991
History Lessons
1 Squinting up at leafy sunlight, I stepped back & shaded my eyes, but couldn’t see what she pointed to. The courthouse lawn where the lone poplar stood Was almost […]
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Autumn 1989
Agnus Dei
My little sister created the Lamb of God. She made him out of used-up dust mops and coat hangers. She left him whitewashed at the entrance to the Calvin Coolidge […]
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Summer 1984
Lulu’s Boys
On the last day that Lulu Lamartine spent as Henry’s widow, her boys were outside drinking beers and shooting plastic jugs. Her deceased husband’s brother, Beverly, was sitting across from […]
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Winter 1981
Map of the New World
I Dragons once, with webbed hands, serrated fins, circled this unknown sea. Their scales flake now like scurf, their skins aged with this wrinkled chart. Where they were feared to […]
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Summer 1979
In Evil Hour: An Excerpt from the Novel
From the Spanish. Dr Giraldo was thinking, his chin daubed with lather, when a nauseating whiff drew him out of his memories. A flock of buzzards scattered on the opposite […]
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Summer 1979
The Resurrection
We’ll start the story right when Jesus C. Gives up, and turns a shade of possum-gray. It’s dark, and there are earthquakes—well, okay, It’s dark, and to complete our misery […]
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Autumn 1960
The Colossus
I shall never get you put together entirely, Pieced, glued, and properly jointed. Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles Proceed from your great lips. It’s worse than a barnyard. Perhaps you […]
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Summer 1953
Two Recent Travelers
Ataturk in bumpy stone or marble, a seated pose, bitterly earned pomposity, a sort of athlete-deputy from the East; or reckless on horseback in the new squares, streaky, brigandish, a […]
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Spring 1953
The Life You Save May Be Your Own
The old woman and her daughter were sitting on their porch when Mr. Shiftlet came up their road for the first time. The old woman slid to the edge of […]
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Summer 1952
Song of the Mad Menagerie
I on whom the wild sun Upon unvaried journey Burned with jealousy Because of my unreason, Know I was legendary. On straw I lie down. Wise hand, be wary: My […]
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Summer 1952
The Doctor in Search of Himself
There is no quackery about Dr. Williams, either as physician or poet. His Autobiography is unpretentious and forthright to the point of being maladroit. Dr. Williams has the gift of […]
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Summer 1948
Two Deliberate Exercises
I. LESSON FROM A PUPILS’ RECITAL (For Agnes) In a four-fold silence the music struggles for mastery and the mind from its silence, fatefully assured, wakens to the music: […]
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Winter 1948
The Auroras of Autumn
I This is where the serpent lives, the bodiless. His head is air. Beneath his tip at night Eyes open and fix on us in every sky. Or is this […]
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Winter 1948
Falling Asleep over the Aeneid
An old man in Concord forgets to go to Morning Service. He falls asleep, while reading Virgil, and dreams that he is Aeneas at the funeral of Pallas, an Italian […]
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Spring 1946
My Sisters, O My Sisters
I ”Nous qui voulions poser, image ineffaceable Comme un delta divin notre main sur le sable” —Anna de Noailles Dorothy Wordsworth, dying, did not want to read, “I am too busy […]
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Winter 1945
The Lovers
He used to come to see us one summer when we lived on the Island. As I reached the corner of the house wheeling my bicycle, which I was not […]
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Spring 1940
For an Emigrant
I In that bad year and city of your birthThey traded bread for bank-notes weight for weight,And nothing but the statues kept the smileThe waltzers wore once: excluding, innocent,The face […]
Read the winning piece of our 2025 Nonfiction Contest “Through the Mirror” by Jessie Cato selected by Lucy Ives.
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