The Red Poppy —Louise Glück The great thing is not having a mind. Feelings: oh, I have those; they govern me. I have a lord in heaven called the sun, and open for him, showing him the fire of my own heart, fire like his presence. What could such glory be if not a heart? […]
Melancholia —C. Dale Young The whirring internal machine, its gears grinding not to a halt but to a pace that emits a low hum, a steady and almost imperceptible hum: the Greeks would not have seen it this way. Simply put, it was a result of black bile, the small fruit of the gall bladder […]
Absolute —Jacqueline Woodson The summer I was ten a teenager named Kim butterflied my hair. Cornrows curling into braids behind each ear. Everybody’s wearing this style now, Kim said. Who could try to tell me I wasn’t beautiful. The magic in something as once ordinary as hair that for too long had not been good […]
Songs for the People —Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Let me make the songs for the people, Songs for the old and young; Songs to stir like a battle-cry Wherever they are sung. Not for the clashing of sabres, For carnage nor for strife; But songs to thrill the hearts of men With more abundant life. […]
Give Me This ~ Ada Limón I thought it was the neighbor’s cat back to clean the clock of the fledgling robins low in their nest stuck in the dense hedge by the house but what came was much stranger, a liquidity moving all muscle and bristle. A groundhog slippery and waddle thieving my tomatoes […]
