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1. The Summer I Was SixteenGeraldine Connolly

The turquoise pool rose up to meet us,its slide a silver afterthought down whichwe plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles.We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy.

Shaking water off our limbs, we liftedup from ladder rungs across the fern-coollip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated,we sunbathed, rose and paraded the concrete,

danced to the low beat of "Duke of Earl".Past cherry colas, hot-dogs, Dreamsicles,we came to the counter where bees staggeredinto root beer cups and drowned. We gobbled

cotton candy torches, sweet as furtive kisses,shared on benches beneath summer shadows.Cherry. Elm. Sycamore. We spread our chenilleblankets across grass, pressed radios to our ears,

mouthing the old words, then loosenedthin bikini straps and rubbed baby oil with iodineacross sunburned shoulders, tossing a glancethrough the chain link at an improbable world.

from Province of Fire, 1998Iris Press, Oak Ridge, Tenn.

2. The Blue BowlJane Kenyon

Like primitives we buried the catwith his bowl. Bare-handedwe scraped sand and gravelback into the hole. They fell with a hissand thud on his side,on his long red fur, the white feathersbetween his toes, and hislong, not to say aquiline, nose.

We stood and brushed each other off.There are sorrows keener than these.

Silent the rest of the day, we worked,ate, stared, and slept. It stormed

all night; now it clears, and a robinburbles from a dripping bushlike the neighbor who means wellbut always says the wrong thing.

from Otherwise: New & Selected Poems, 1996Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota

3. LinesMartha Collins

Draw a line. Write a line. There.Stay in line, hold the line, a glancebetween the lines is fine but don'tturn corners, cross, cut in, go overor out, between two points of noreturn's a line of flight, betweentwo points of view's a line of vision.But a line of thought is rarelystraight, an open line's no partyline, however fine your point.A line of fire communicates, but dropyour weapons and drop your line,consider the shortest distance from xto y, let x be me, let y be you.

from Some Things Words Can Do, 1998The Sheep Meadows Press, Riverdale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Copyright 1988 by Martha Collins.

4. The DistancesHenry Rago

This house, pitched nowThe dark wide stretchOf plains and oceanTo these hills overThe night-filled river,Billows with night,Swells with the roomsOf sleeping children, pullsSlowly from this bed,Slowly returns, pulls and holds,Is held where we Lock all distances!

Ah, how the distances

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Spiral from thatSecrecy:Room,Rooms, roofSpun to the hugeMidnight, and intoThe rings and rings of stars.

from A Sky of Late Summer, 1963 The Macmillan Company

5. “Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?"Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leaveyour house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheapone is best, with pages the color of weak teaand on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more thanthree people are wearing turtlenecks. Bewareany snow-covered chalet with deer tracksacross the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.And the perfect place in a library is near an aislewhere a child a year or two old is playing as hismother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.The title, the author's name, the brooding photoon the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, graybook on brown, he builds a tower. And the higherit gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the towerfalls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybodyin the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

from Fever, 2006Red Hen Press

6. NumbersMary Cornish

I like the generosity of numbers.The way, for example,they are willing to countanything or anyone:two pickles, one door to the room,eight dancers dressed as swans.

I like the domesticity of addition--add two cups of milk and stir--the sense of plenty: six plumson the ground, three morefalling from the tree.

And multiplication's schoolof fish times fish,whose silver bodies breedbeneath the shadowof a boat.

Even subtraction is never loss,just addition somewhere else:five sparrows take away two,the two in someone else'sgarden now.

There's an amplitude to long division,as it opens Chinese take-outbox by paper box,inside every folded cookiea new fortune.

And I never fail to be surprisedby the gift of an odd remainder,footloose at the end:forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,with three remaining.

Three boys beyond their mothers' call,two Italians off to the sea,one sock that isn't anywhere you look.

from Poetry magazineVolume CLXXVI, Number 3, June 2000

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7. The CordLeanne O’Sullivan

I used to lie on the floor for hours afterschool with the phone cradled betweenmy shoulder and my ear, a plate of coldrice to my left, my school books to my right.Twirling the cord between my fingersI spoke to friends who recognized thelanguage of our realm. Throats and lungsswollen, we talked into the heart of the night,toying with the idea of hair dye and suicide,about the boys who didn’t love us, who we loved too much, the pangof the nights. Each sentence wasnew territory, like a door someone wasrushing into, the glass shatteringwith delirium, with knowledge and fear.My Mother never complained about the phone bill,what it cost for her daughter to disappearbehind a door, watching the cordstretching its muscle away from her.Perhaps she thought it was the only wayshe could reach me, sending me awayto speak in the underworld.As long as I was speakingshe could put my ear to the tenuous earthand allow me to listen, to decipher.And these were the elements of my Mother,the earthed wire, the burning cable,as if she flowed into the room withme to somehow say, Stay where I can reach you,the dim room, the dark earth. Speak of thisand when you feel removed from itI will pull the cord and take youback towards me.

From Waiting for My Clothes, 2004Bloodaxe Books

This poem is spoken by anepitaph -- words on a tombstone.

8. Passer-by, these are words...Yves Bonnefoy

Passer-by, these are words. But instead of reading I want you to listen: to this frail Voice like that of letters eaten by grass.

Lend an ear, hear first of all the happy beeForaging in our almost rubbed-out names. It flits between two sprays of leaves,Carrying the sound of branches that are real To those that filigree the still unseen.

Then know an even fainter sound, and let it be The endless murmuring of all our shades.Their whisper rises from beneath the stones To fuse into a single heat with that blind Light you are as yet, who can still gaze.

May your listening be good! SilenceIs a threshold where a twig breaks in your hand, Imperceptibly, as you attempt to disengage A name upon a stone:

And so our absent names untangle your alarms. And for you who move away, pensively, Here becomes there without ceasing to be.

from The Partisan ReviewVolume LXVII, Number 2, Spring 2001Translated from the French by Hoyt Rogers

9. The PoetTom Wayman

Loses his position on worksheet or page in textbookMay speak much but makes little senseCannot give clear verbal instructionsDoes not understand what he readsDoes not understand what he hearsCannot handle “yes-no” questions

Has great difficulty interpreting proverbsHas difficulty recalling what he ate for breakfast, etc.Cannot tell a story from a pictureCannot recognize visual absurdities

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Has difficulty classifying and categorizing objectsHas difficulty retaining such things asaddition and subtraction facts, or multiplication tablesMay recognize a word one day and not the next

From In a Small House on the Outskirts of Heaven, 1989Harbour Publishing

10. RadioLaurel Blossom

No radioin car

No radio on board

No radioAlready stolen

Absolutely no radio!

Radio brokenAlarm is setTo go off

No radioNo money

No radiono valuables

No radio orvaluablesin car or trunk

No radioStolen 3X

No radioEmpty trunkEmpty glove compartmentHonest

In carNothing of value

No radioNo nuthin(no kidding)

Radio BrokenNothing Left!

Radio GoneNote Hole in Dashboard

Warning!Radio Will Not PlayWhen RemovedSecurity Code Required

Would you keepAnything valuableIn this wreck?

No valuablesIn this van

Please do notBreak-inUnnecessarily

Thank youFor your kindConsideration

Nothing of valuein carNo radioNo tapesNo telephone

from The Papers Said , 2001Greenhouse Review Press

11. Dorie Off To AtlantaMark Halliday

Jen? Hi, it’s Dorie. I’m on the bus to LaGuardia. … Atlanta.What? … Maybe. I’m not really sure. I mean his schedule is so whacked,

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y’know? … But anyway. I was telling you about Marcie. Yeah. SoI said to her, I said, Marcie, this one seems different, y’know?I said the last few guys you’ve dated–from what you’ve told me– I mean frankly– … Yeah. I said, Marcie, they might belike very charming, y’know, and with great jobs, but frankly–what it comes down to is, Let’s hit the bed,and in the morning, Thanks for the excellent coffee. Y’know?But this guy– … What? It’s Jason. Yeah.So I said Marcie, from what you’ve said, Jason sounds different–and from what Bob said about him also. … Bob knows him from some project last fall. So I said Marcie, you’ve had, what,two coffees, two lunches, and a dinner, and he still hasn’t– …No, Bob says he’s definitely straight. …I think there was a divorce like six years ago or something. But my–What? … That’s right, yeah, I did. At Nathan’s party after some show …Yeah, “The Duchess of Malfi,” I forgot I told you. What? …Only for five minutes–one cigarette, y’know? … Kind of low- Key,like thoughtful. But my point is– … Yeah, exactly! So I said,Marcie, this is a guy who understands, y’know,that bed is like part of something, y’know?Like it’s not the big objective for godsake. It’s like an aspect–What? … Exactly–it’s an expression of something much more–Yes!–it’s like, Can we be companions in life, y’know?So I said, Marcie, for godsake–if you don’t give this guy

like a serious chance, somebody else–y’know? … Right, I mean let’s face it– … Jen? I’m losing you here–am I breaking up?Jen, I’ll call you from the airport–Okay bye.

From The Gettysburg Review, vol. 17 no. 1Gettysburg College12. WheelsJim Daniels

My brother keptin a frame on the wallpictures of every motorcycle, car, truck:in his rusted out Impala convertiblewearing his cap and gownwavingin his yellow Barracudawith a girl leaning into himwavingon his Honda 350wavingon his Honda 750 with the boysholding a beerwavingin his first rigwearing a baseball hat backwardswavingin his Mercury Montegogetting marriedwavingin his black LTDtrying to sell real estatewavingback to driving trucksa shiny new rigwavingon his Harley Sportsterwith his wife on the backwavinghis son in a car seatwith his own steering wheelmy brother leaning over himin an old Ford pickupand they arewavingholding a wrench a raga hose a shammy

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waving.

My brother helmetlessrides off on his Harleywavingmy brother's feetrarely touch the ground-waving wavingface pressed to the windno camera to save him.

from Places/Everyone, 1985(University of Wisconsin Press, 1985)

13. After UsConnie Wanek

I don't know if we're in the beginningor in the final stage. -- Tomas Tranströmer

Rain is falling through the roof.And all that prospered under the sun,the books that opened in the morningand closed at night, and all dayturned their pages to the light;

the sketches of boats and strong forearmsand clever faces, and of fieldsand barns, and of a bowl of eggs,and lying across the pianothe silver stick of a flute; everything

invented and imagined,everything whispered and sung,all silenced by cold rain.

The sky is the color of gravestones.The rain tastes like salt, and risesin the streets like a ruinous tide.We spoke of millions, of billions of years.We talked and talked.

Then a drop of rain fellinto the sound hole of the guitar, anotheronto the unmade bed. And after us,the rain will cease or it will go on falling,even upon itself.

from Poetry magazineVolume CLXXVII, Number 3, January 2001

14. Domestic Work, 1937Natasha Trethewey

All week she's cleanedsomeone else's house,stared down her own facein the shine of copper-bottomed pots, polishedwood, toilets she'd pullthe lid to--that look saying

Let's make a change, girl.

But Sunday mornings are hers--church clothes starchedand hanging, a record spinningon the console, the whole housedancing. She raises the shades,washes the rooms in light,buckets of water, Octagon soap.

Cleanliness is next to godliness ...

Windows and doors flung wide,curtains two-steppingforward and back, neck bonesbumping in the pot, a choirof clothes clapping on the line.

Nearer my God to Thee ...

She beats time on the rugs,blows dust from the broomlike dandelion spores, each onea wish for something better.

from Domestic Work, 1999Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minn.

15. Before She DiedKaren Chase

When I look at the sky now, I look at it for you.

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As if with enough attention, I could take it in for you.

With all the leaves gone almost fromthe trees, I did not walk briskly through the field.

Late today with my dog Wool, I lay down in the upper field,he panting and aged, me looking at the blue. Leaning

on him, I wondered how finite these lustered days seemto you, A stand of hemlock across the lake catches

my eye. It will take a long time to know how it isfor you. Like a dog's lifetime -- long -- multiplied by sevens.

from Kazimierz Square, 2000CavanKerry Press, Fort Lee, N.J.

16. PoetryDon Paterson

In the same way that the mindless diamond keepsone spark of the planet's early firestrapped forever in its net of ice,it's not love's later heat that poetry holds,but the atom of the love that drew it forthfrom the silence: so if the bright coal of his lovebegins to smoulder, the poet hears his voicesuddenly forced, like a bar-room singer's -- boastfulwith his own huge feeling, or drowned by violins;but if it yields a steadier light, he knowsthe pure verse, when it finally comes, will soundlike a mountain spring, anonymous and serene.

Beneath the blue oblivious sky, the watersings of nothing, not your name, not mine.

from The White Lie; New and Selected Poetry, 2001Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minn.

17. Advice from the Experts

Bill Knott

I lay down in the empty street and parkedMy feet against the gutter's curb while fromThe building above a bunch of gawkers perchedAlong its ledges urged me don't, don't jump.

from Laugh at the End of the World:Collected Comic Poems 1969-1999BOA Editions, Ltd.

18. One MorningEamon Grennan

Looking for distinctive stones, I found the dead otterrotting by the tideline, and carried all day the scent of this savagevalediction. That headlong high sound the oystercatcher makescame echoing through the rocky covewhere a cormorant was feeding and submarining in the bayand a heron rose off a boulder where he'd been invisible,drifted a little, stood again -- a hieroglyphor just longevity reflecting on itselfbetween the sky clouding over and the lightly ruffled water.

This was the morning after your dream of dying, of being heldand told it didn't matter. A butterfly went jinking overthe wave-silky stones, and where I turnedto go up the road again, a couple in a blue camper satsmoking their cigarettes over their breakfast coffee (bluescent of smoke, the thick dark smell of fresh coffee)and talking in quiet voices, first one then the other answering,their radio telling the daily news behind them. It was warm.All seemed at peace. I could feel the sun coming off the water.

from Relations: New and Selected Poems, 1998

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Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minn.

19. Marcus Millsap: School Day AfternoonDave Etter

I climb the steps of the yellow school bus,move to a seat in back, and we're off,bouncing along the bumpy blacktop.What am I going to do when I get home?I'm going to make myself a sugar sandwichand go outdoors and look at the birdsand the gigantic blue silothey put up across the road at Motts'.This weekend we're going to the farm show.I like roosters and pigs, but farming's no fun.When I get old enough to do something big,I'd like to grow orange trees in a greenhouse.Or maybe I'll drive a school busand yell at the kids when I feel mad:"Shut up back there, you hear me?"At last, my house, and I grab my science bookand hurry down the steps into the sun.There's Mr. Mott, staring at his tractor.He's wearing his DeKalb capwith the crazy winged ear of corn on it.He wouldn't wave over here to meif I was handing out hundred dollar bills.I'll put brown sugar on my bread this time,then go lie around by the water pump,where the grass is very green and soft,soft as the body of a red-winged blackbird.Imagine, a blue silo to stare at,and Mother not coming home till dark!

from Alliance, IllinoisSpoon River Petry Press, 1983

20. Publication DateFranz Wright

One of the few pleasures of writingis the thought of one’s book in the hands of a kind-heartedintelligent person somewhere. I can’t remember what the others are right now.I just noticed that it is my own private

National I Hate Myself and Want to Die Day(which means the next day I will love my lifeand want to live forever). The forecast callsfor a cold night in Boston all morning

and all afternoon. They saytomorrow will be just like today,only different. I’m in the cemetery nowat the edge of town, how did I get here?

A sparrow limps past on its little bone crutch sayingI am Federico Garcia Lorcarisen from the dead–literature will lose, sunlight will win, don’t worry.

From FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics, vol. 70, 2004Oberlin College Press

21. Gouge, Adze, Rasp, HammerChris Forhan

So this is what it's like when loveleaves, and one is disappointedthat the body and mind continue to exist,

exacting payment from each other,engaging in stale rituals of desire,and it would seem the best use of one's time

is not to stand for hours outsideher darkened house, drenched and chilled,blinking into the slanting rain.

So this is what it's like to have topractice amiability and learnto say the orchard looks grand this evening

as the sun slips behind scumbled cloudsand the pears, mellowed to a golden-green,glow like flames among the boughs.

It is now one claims there is comfortin the constancy of nature, in the wind's wayof snatching dogwood blossoms from their branches,

scattering them in the dirt, in the slug's

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sure, slow arrival to nowhere.It is now one makes a show of praise

for the lilac that strains so hard to winattention to its sweet inscrutability,when one admires instead the lowly

gouge, adze, rasp, hammer--fire-forged, blunt-syllabled things,unthought-of until a need exists:

a groove chiseled to a fixed width,a roof sloped just so. It is nowone knows what it is to envy

the rivet, wrench, vise -- whateverworks unburdened by memory and sight,while high above the damp fields

flocks of swallows roil and dip,and streams churn, thick with leaping salmon,and the bee advances on the rose.

originally published in New England ReviewVolume 21, Number 4, Fall 2000

22. Hand ShadowsMary Cornish

My father put his hands in the white lightof the lantern, and his palms became a horsethat flicked its ears and bucked; an alligatorfeigning sleep along the canvas wall leapt upand snapped its jaws in silhouette, or elsea swan would turn its perfect neck and dropa fingered beak toward that shadowed headto lightly preen my father's feathered hair.Outside our tent, skunks shuffled in the woodsbeneath a star that died a little every day,and from a nebula of light diffusedinside Orion's sword, new stars were born.My father's hands became two birds, linkedby a thumb, they flew one following the other.

from Red Studio, 2007Oberlin College Press

23. She Didn't Mean to Do ItDaisy Fried

Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad.She didn't mean to do it.

Certain thrills stay tucked in your limbs,go no further than your fingers, move your legs through their paces,but no more. Certain thrills knock you flaton your sheets on your bed in your room and you fadeand they fade. You falter and they're gone, gone, gone.Certain thrills puff off you like smoke rings,some like bell rings growing out, out, turningbrass, steel, gold, till the whole world's filledwith the gonging of your thrills.

But oh, she was sad, she was just sad, sad,and she didn't mean to do it.

from She Didn't Mean to Do It, 2000University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa.

24. SnowDavid Berman

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.For some reason, I told him that a troop of angelshad been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.

He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.

Then we were on the roof of the lake.The ice looked like a photograph of water.

Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.

I didn't know where I was going with this.

They were on his property, I said.

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When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.

We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.

But why were they on his property, he asked.from Actual Air, 1999Open City Books, New York

25. GrammarTony Hoagland

Maxine, back from a weekend with her boyfriend,smiles like a big cat and saysthat she's a conjugated verb.She's been doing the direct objectwith a second person pronoun named Phil,and when she walks into the room,everybody turns:

some kind of light is coming from her head.Even the geraniums look curious,and the bees, if they were here, would buzzsuspiciously around her hair, lookingfor the door in her corona.We're all attracted to the perfumeof fermenting joy,

we've all tried to start a fire,and one day maybe it will blaze up on its own.In the meantime, she is the one today among usmost able to bear the idea of her own beauty,and when we see it, what we do is natural:we take our burned handsout of our pockets,and clap.

from Donkey Gospel, 1998Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minn.

26. In the WellAndrew Hudgins

My father cinched the rope,a noose around my waist,and lowered me intothe darkness. I could taste

my fear. It tasted firstof dark, then earth, then rot.I swung and struck my headand at that moment got

another then: then blood,which spiked my mouth with iron.Hand over hand, my fatherdropped me from then to then:

then water. Then wet fur,which I hugged to my chest.I shouted. Daddy hauledthe wet rope. I gagged, and pressed

my neighbor's missing dogagainst me. I held its deathand rose up to my father.Then light. Then hands. Then breath.

first published in The Southern Review, 2001Volume 37, Number 2, Spring 2001

27. The Poetry of Bad WeatherDebora Greger

Someone had propped a skateboardby the door of the classroom,to make quick his escape, come the bell.

For it was February in Florida,the air of instruction thick with tanning butter.Why, my students wondered,

did the great dead poets all live north of us?Was there nothing to do all winter there

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but pine for better weather?

Had we a window, the class could keep an eyeon the clock and yet watch the wild plumnod with the absent grace of the young.

We could study the showy scatter of petals.We could, for want of a better word, call it “snowy.”The room filled with stillness, flake by flake.

Only the dull roar of air forced to spend its life indoorscould be heard. Not even the songbirdof a cell phone chirped. Go home,

I wanted to tell the horse on the page.You know the way, even in snowgone blue with cold.from Southwest Review, 2006 Volume 91, Number 1, Page 90

28. The Green One Over ThereKatia Kapovich

My half-brother had dark sad eyes, wheaten hairand the same gorgeous skin his mother had.He was cute and smart and innately kind,unlike me at his age, according to our father.Five years younger than me,Tim attracted all the lovemy father had frozen in his heartwhen I was growing up.Tim was brought up on my old books.He did better than I with poetry,reciting by six some “grownup” verseswhich I couldn’t memorize at eleven.At eight he wrote a poemat the back of his math exercise book and forgot about it.It was a love poemwith an underlined dedication, “To A.”It so happened that I knew who A was.The poem read as follows:“I loved and missed her so muchthat I forgot what she looked like,and when she entered the classroomin the morning, I did not recognize her.

I did not recognize her long face,nor her slow neck, nor her skinny hands,I had completely forgotten her green eyes.”It was quite a work of art, in my opinion,but I told him that to sigh aboutlegs and necks and eyeswas sentimental and girlish.He listened to me with dry eyesand then tore out the page and threw it awayinto the wastebasket.He never wrote poetry again, but I did.At fifteen I wrote a short storywhich had some success and was evenpublished in a teenage literary magazinecalled “Asterisks.” It was around that timethat I stopped visiting my dad’s houseafter I realizedthat everything about this boyput me down, humiliated meand filled me with jealousy.I would meet dad on one condition:if he wanted to see me,he had to come to my placeor to stop by at the artsy café,where my older friend Lena and I would go after schoolto sip strawberry milkshakes.One day my fathercame to my school during class hoursto take me to a hospital: the night beforemy half-brother had gotten sick.We arrived in the middle of the doctor’s rounds.The waiting area was noisyand smelled of urine and medication.Dad had gone inside,I waited for him to call me in.Through the door left ajarI saw a row of iron bunks with striped mattresses.Tim’s was next to the door.He lay leaning on a big gray pillow,a glass of water in his hand.The doctor wanted him to take a pill,but he wouldn’t hear of it.He was willful, obstreperous,he pushed away the hand of medicine.“I want that ship, that ship …” he whined.“What ship?” My father turned paleand stared at the doctor. “Can’t you see?The green one, over there!” cried Tim,

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inserting his finger in the glass of waterwhere a green ship, a three-funneled steamer,was slowly sinking at the time.

From Gogol in Rome, 2004Salt Publishing

29. FaultRon Koertge

In the airport bar, I tell my mother not to worry.No one ever tripped and fell into the San AndreasFault. But as she dabs at her dry eyes, I rememberthose old movies where the earth does open.

There's always one blonde entomologist, fourdeceitful explorers, and a pilot who's good-lookingbut not smart enough to take off his leather jacketin the jungle.

Still, he and Dr. Cutie Bug are the only oneswho survive the spectacular quake becausethey spent their time making plans to go backto the Mid-West and live near his parents

while the others wanted to steal the gold and ivorythen move to Los Angeles where they would rarelycall their mothers and almost never fly homeand when they did for only a few days at a time.

from Geography of the Forehead, 2000University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, Ark.

30. Painting a RoomKatia Kapovich

Here on a March day in ‘89I blanch the ceiling and walls with bluish lime.Drop cloths and old newspapers hidethe hardwood floors. All my furniture has been sold,or given away to bohemian friends.There is nothing to eat but bread and wine.

An immigration visa in my pocket, I paintthe small apartment where I’ve lived for ten years.Taking a break around 4 p.m., I sit on the last chair in the empty kitchen,

smoke a cigarette and wipe my tearswith the sleeve of my old pullover.I am free from regrets but not from pain.

Ten years of fears, unrequited loves, odd jobs,of night phone calls. Now they’ve disconnected the line.I drop the ashes in the sink, pour turpentineinto a jar, stirring with a spatula. My heart throbsin my right palm when I pick up the brush again.

For ten years the window’s turquoise squarehas held my eyes in its simple frame.Now, face to face with the darkening sky,what more can I say to the glass but thanksfor being transparent, seamless, wideand stretching perspective across the sizeof the visible.

Then I wash the brushes and turn off the light.This is my last night before moving abroad.I lie down on the floor, a rolled-up coatunder my head. This is the last night.Freedom smells of a freshly painted room,of wooden floors swept with a willow broom,and of stale raisin bread.

From Gogol in Rome, 2004Salt Publishing

31. OtherwiseJane Kenyon

I got out of bedon two strong legs.It might have beenotherwise. I atecereal, sweetmilk, ripe, flawlesspeach. It mighthave been otherwise.I took the dog uphillto the birch wood.All morning I didthe work I love.

At noon I lay downwith my mate. It might

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have been otherwise.We ate dinner togetherat a table with silvercandlesticks. It mighthave been otherwise.I slept in a bedin a room with paintingson the walls, andplanned another dayjust like this day.But one day, I know,it will be otherwise.

from Otherwise, 1996Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minn.

32. A Primer of the Daily RoundHoward Nemerov

A peels an apple, while B kneels to God,C telephones to D, who has a handOn E's knee, F coughs, G turns up the sodFor H's grave, I do not understandBut J is bringing one clay pigeon downWhile K brings down a nightstick on L's head,And M takes mustard, N drives into town,O goes to bed with P, and Q drops dead,R lies to S, but happens to be heardBy T, who tells U not to fire VFor having to give W the wordThat X is now deceiving Y with Z, Who happens just now to remember A Peeling an apple somewhere far away.

from New and Selected PoemsUniversity of Chicago Press, 1960

33. Selecting a ReaderTed Kooser

First, I would have her be beautiful,and walking carefully up on my poetryat the loneliest moment of an afternoon,her hair still damp at the neckfrom washing it. She should be wearing

a raincoat, an old one, dirtyfrom not having money enough for the cleaners.She will take out her glasses, and therein the bookstore, she will thumbover my poems, then put the book backup on its shelf. She will say to herself,"For that kind of money, I can getmy raincoat cleaned." And she will.

from Sure Signs, 1980University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa.

34. SongEamon Grennan

At her Junior High School graduation,she sings alonein front of the lot of us--

her voice soprano, surprising,almost a woman's. It isthe Our Father in French,

the new languagemaking her strange, out there,fully fledged and

ready for anything. Sittingtogether -- her separatedmother and father -- we can

hear the racket of trafficshaking the main streetsof Jersey City as she sings

Deliver us from evil,and I wonder can she see mein the dark here, years

from belief, on the edgeof tears. It doesn't matter. Shedoesn't miss a beat, keeps

in time, in tune, while intoour common silence I whisper,Sing, love, sing your heart out!

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from Relations: New and Selected Poems, 1998Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minn.

35. White-EyesMary Oliver

In winter all the singing is in the tops of the trees where the wind-bird

with its white eyes shoves and pushes among the branches. Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep, but he's restless— he has an idea, and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings as long as he stays awake But his big, round music, after all, is too breathy to last.

So, it's over. In the pine-crown he makes his nest, he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird, I only imagine his glittering beak tucked in a white wing while the clouds—

which he has summoned from the north— which he has taught to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall into the world below like stars, or the feathers of some unimaginable bird

that loves us, that is asleep now, and silent—

that has turned itself into snow.

Copyright 2002 by Mary Oliver.All rights reserved.Reproduced with permission

36. LessonForrest Hamer

It was 1963 or 4, summer,and my father was driving our familyfrom Ft. Hood to North Carolina in our 56 Buick.We'd been hearing about Klan attacks, and we knew

Mississippi to be more dangerous than usual.Dark lay hanging from the trees the way moss did,and when it moaned light against the windowsthat night, my father pulled off the road to sleep.

Noisesthat usually woke me from rest afraid of monsterskept my father awake that night, too,and I lay in the quiet noticing him listen, learningthat he might not be able always to protect us

from everything and the creatures besides;perhaps not even from the fury suddenly loudthrough my body about his trip from Texasto settle us home before he would go away

to a place no place in the worldhe named Viet Nam. A boy needs a fatherwith him, I kept thinking, fixed against noisefrom the dark.

from Call & Response, 1995Alice James Books, Farmington, Me.

37. FootballLouis Jenkins

I take the snap from the center, fake to the right, fade back...I've got protection. I've got a receiver open downfield...

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What the hell is this? This isn't a football, it's a shoe, a man'sbrown leather oxford. A cousin to a football maybe, the sameskin, but not the same, a thing made for the earth, not the air.I realize that this is a world where anything is possible and Iunderstand, also, that one often has to make do with what onehas. I have eaten pancakes, for instance, with that clear cornsyrup on them because there was no maple syrup and theyweren't very good. Well, anyway, this is different. (My mandownfield is waving his arms.) One has certain responsibilities,one has to make choices. This isn't right and I'm not goingto throw it.

from Nice Fish: New and Selected Prose Poems, 1995Holy Cow! Press, Duluth, Minn.

38. For My DaughterDavid Ignatow

When I die choose a starand name it after methat you may knowI have not abandonedor forgotten you.You were such a star to me,following you through birthand childhood, my handin your hand.

When I diechoose a star and name itafter me so that I may shinedown on you, until you joinme in darkness and silencetogether. from Against the Evidence: Selected Poems 1934-1994Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Conn.

39. What I Would DoMarc Petersen

If my wife were to have an affair,I would walk to my toolbox in the garage,Take from it my 12" flathead screwdriverAnd my hickory-handle hammer,The one that helped me build three redwood fences,And I would hammer out the pinsIn all the door hinges in the house,And I would pull off all the doorsAnd I would stack them in the backyard.And I would empty all the sheets from the linen closet,And especially the flannels we have slept between for nineteen winters;And I would empty all the towels, too,The big heavy white towels she bought on Saturdays at Target,And the red bath towels we got for our wedding,And which we have never used;And I would unroll the aluminum foil from its box,And carry all the pots and pans from the cupboards to the backyard,And lay this one long sheet of aluminum foil over all our pots and pans;And I would dump all the silverware from the drawerOnto the driveway; and I would push my motorcycle overAnd let all its gas leak out,And I would leave my Jeep running at the curbUntil its tank was empty or its motor blew up,And I would turn the TV up full-blast and open all the windows;And I would turn the stereo up full-blast,With Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on it,Schiller's "Ode to Joy," really blasting;And I would strip our bed;And I would lie on our stripped bed;And I would see our maple budding out the window.I would see our maple budding out our window,

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The hummingbird feeder hanging from its lowest bough.And my cat would jump up to see what was the matter with me.And I would tell her. Of course, I would tell her.From her, I hold nothing back.

Copyright by Marc Petersen.All rights reserved.Reproduced with permission

40. Bringing My Son to the Police Station to be Fingerprinted

Shoshauna Shy

My lemon-coloredwhisper-weight blousewith keyhole closureand sweetheart neckline is tuckedinto a pastel silhouette skirtwith side-slit ventsand triplicate pleatswhen I realize in the sunlightthrough the windshieldthat the cool yellow of this blouse clasheswith the buttermilk heather in my skirtwhich makes me slightly queasyhowever

the periwinkle in the pattern on the sashis sufficiently echoed by the twill uppersof my buckle-snug sandalswhile the accents on my pursepick up the pinkin the button stitches

and then as we passthrough Weapons Checkit's reassuring to notehow the yellows momentarily meshand make an overall pleasingcomposite

from Poetry Northwest, Spring 2001University of Washington, Seattle, WA

41. To a Daughter Leaving HomeLinda Pastan

When I taught youat eight to ridea bicycle, loping alongbeside youas you wobbled awayon two round wheels,my own mouth roundingin surprise when you pulledahead down the curvedpath of the park,I kept waitingfor the thudof your crash as Isprinted to catch up,while you grewsmaller, more breakablewith distance,pumping, pumpingfor your life, screamingwith laughter,the hair flappingbehind you like ahandkerchief wavinggoodbye.

from The Imperfect Paradise, 1988W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY

42. June 11David Lehman

It's my birthday I've got an emptystomach and the desire to belazy in the hammock and maybego for a cool swim on a hot daywith the trombone in Sinatra's"I've Got You Under My Skin"in my head and then to break forlunch a corned-beef sandwich and Pepsiwith plenty of ice cubes unlike Francewhere they put one measly ice cubein your expensive Coke and whenyou ask for more they argue withyou they say this way you get moreCoke for the money showing theycompletely misunderstand the nature of

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American soft drinks which are anexcuse for ice cubes still I wouldn'tmind being there for a couple ofdays Philip Larkin's attitudetoward China comes to mind whenasked if he'd like to go there he saidyes if he could return the same day

from The Daily Mirror, 2000Scribner, New York

43. Doing WithoutDavid Ray

's an interestingcustom, involving such in- visible items as the foodthat's not on the table, the clothes that are not on the backthe radio whose music is silence. Doing withoutis a great protector of reputations since all places one cannot goare fabulous, and only the rare and enlightened plowman in his fieldor on his mountain does not overrate what he does not or cannot have.Saluting through their windows of cathedral glass those restaurantswe must not enter (unless like burglars we become subject toarrest) we greet with our twinkling eyes the faces of others who dowithout, the lady with the fishing pole, and the man who looksamused to have discovered on a walk another piece of firewood.

from Gathering Firewood, 1974Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT

44. KnowledgePhilip Memmer

My philosopher friend is explaining againthat the bottle of well-chilled beer in my hand

might not be a bottle of beer,that the trickle of bottle-sweat cooling in my palm

might not be wet, might not be cool,that in fact it’s impossible ever to know

if I’m holding a bottle at all.I try to follow his logic, flipping the steaks

that are almost certainly hissingover the bed of coals – coals I’d swear

were black at first, then gray, then red – coals we could spread out and walk on

and why not, I ask, since we’ll never be sureif our feet burn, if our soles

blister and peel, if our faithlessnessis any better or worse a tool

than the firewalker’s can-do extreme.Exactly, he smiles. Behind the fence

the moon rises, or seems to.Have another. Whatever else is true,

the coals feel hotter than everas the darkness begins to do

what darkness does. Another what? I ask.

From Poems and Plays #11, spring/summer 2004

45. A New PoetLinda Pastan

Finding a new poetis like finding a new wildflowerout in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, andnobody you tell believesin its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rowsdown the whole length of the page. In factthe very page smells of spilled

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red wine and the mustiness of the seaon a foggy day - the odor of truthand of lying.

And the words are so familiar,so strangely new, wordsyou almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencilor a pen or even a paintbrush,if only there had been a flower.

from Heroes In Disguise, 1991W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY

46. SureArlene Tribbia

I miss my brother surehe drank Robitussinwashed down with beersure he smoked dope& shot heroin& went to prisonfor selling to an undercover cop

& sure he robbedthe town’s only hot dog stand,Gino’s like I overheardwhile I laid on my bedstaring up at the starsunder slanted curtains

& sure he used toleave his two year oldson alone so he couldscore on the street

but before all this my brother sureused to swing me uponto his back, runme around dizzythrough hallways and rooms& we’d laugh & laughfall onto the bed finally and he’d tickle me

to death sureFrom Margie/The American Journal of PoetryVolume 2, 2004

Copyright 2004 Arlene Tribbia.All rights reserved.Reproduced with permission

47. Relearning WinterMark Svenvold

Hello Winter, hello flanneledblanket of clouds, cloudsfueled by more clouds, hello again.

Hello afternoons, off to the west, that sliverof sunset, rust-coloredand gone too soon.

And night (I admit to a short memory)you climb back in with chilly fingersand clocks, and there is no refusal:ice cracks the water main, the garden hosestiffens, the bladed leaves of the rhododendronshine in the fog of a huge moon.

And rain, street lacquer,oily puddles and spinning rubber,mist of angels on the head of a pin,hello,

and snow, upside-down cake of clouds,white, freon scent, you buildeven as you empty the world of texture-hello to this new relief,this new solitude now upon us,upon which we feed.

from Soul Data, 1998University of North Texas Press, Denton, TX

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48. Loud MusicStephen Dobyns

My stepdaughter and I circle round and round.You see, I like the music loud, the speakersthrobbing, jam-packing the room with sound whetherBach or rock and roll, the volume cranked up soeach bass notes is like a hand smacking the gut.But my stepdaughter disagrees. She is fourand likes the music decorous, pitched belowher own voice-that tenuous projection of self.With music blasting, she feels she disappears,is lost within the blare, which in fact I like.But at four what she wants is self-locationand uses her voice as a porpoise uses its sonar: to find herself in all this space.If she had a sort of box with a peepholeand looked inside, what she'd like to see would beherself standing there in her red pants, jacket,yellow plastic lunch box: a proper subjectfor serious study. But me, if I raisedthe same box to my eye, I would wish to findthe ocean on one of those days when windand thick cloud make the water gray and restlessas if some creature brooded underneath,a rocky coast with a road along the shorewhere someone like me was walking and has gone.Loud music does this, it wipes out the ego,leaving turbulent water and winding road,a landscape stripped of people and language-how clear the air becomes, how sharp the colors.

from Cemetery Nights, 1988Penguin

49. The Grammar LessonSteve Kowit

A noun's a thing. A verb's the thing it does.An adjective is what describes the noun.In "The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz"

of and with are prepositions. The'san article, a can's a noun,a noun's a thing. A verb's the thing it does.

A can can roll - or not. What isn't wasor might be, might meaning not yet known."Our can of beets is filled with purple fuzz"

is present tense. While words like our and usare pronouns - i.e. it is moldy, they are icky brown.A noun's a thing; a verb's the thing it does.

Is is a helping verb. It helps becausefilled isn't a full verb. Can's what our ownsin "Our can of beets is filled with purple fuzz."

See? There's almost nothing to it. Justmemorize these rules...or write them down!A noun's a thing, a verb's the thing it does.The can of beets is filled with purple fuzz.

from In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop, 1995Tilbury House, Publishers, Gardiner, Maine

50. The Death of Santa ClausCharles Webb

He's had the chest pains for weeks,but doctors don't make housecalls to the North Pole,

he's let his Blue Cross lapse,blood tests make him faint,hospital gown always flap

open, waiting rooms upsethis stomach, and it's onlyindigestion anyway, he thinks,

until, feeding the reindeer,he feels as if a monster fisthas grabbed his heart and won't

stop squeezing. He can'tbreathe, and the beautiful whiteworld he loves goes black,

and he drops on his jelly bellyin the snow and Mrs. Claustears out of the toy factory

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wailing, and the elves wringtheir little hands, and Rudolph'snose blinks like a sad ambulance

light, and in a tract housein Houston, Texas, I'm 8,telling my mom that stupid

kids at school say Santa's a bigfake, and she sits with meon our purple-flowered couch,

and takes my hand, tearsin her throat, the terriblenews rising in her eyes.

from Reading The Water, 2001Northeastern University Press

51. Hate PoemJulie Sheehan

I hate you truly. Truly I do.Everything about me hates everything about you.The flick of my wrist hates you.The way I hold my pencil hates you.The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.

Look out! Fore! I hate you.

The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you.The history of this keychain hates you.My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases hates you.The goldfish of my genius hates you.My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.

A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious symbol of how I hate you.

My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.My pleasant “good morning”: hate.

You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head under your arm? Hate.The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit practices it.My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning to night hate you.Layers of hate, a parfait.Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one individually and at leisure.My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity of my hate, which can never have enough of you,Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.

from PLEIADES, vol. 24:2Central Missouri State Press

52. WitnessMartha Collins

If she says something now he'll say it's not true if he says it's not truethey'll think it's not true if they thinkit's not true it will be nothing newbut for her it will be a weightierthing it will fill up the space wherehe isn't allowed it will open the doorof the room where she's put himaway he will fill up her mind he will fillup her plate and her glass he will fill upher shoes and her clothes she will neverforget him he says if she sayssomething now if she says something everhe never will let her forget and it's truefor a week for a month but the moreshe says true and the more he says notthe smaller he seems he may fill uphis shoes he may fill up his clothesthe usual spaces he fills but somethingis missing whatever they say whateverthey think he is not what he wasand the room in her mind is open shewalks in and out as she pleases she sayswhat she pleases she says what she means.

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from Some Things Words Can Do, 1998Sheep Meadow Press

53. Who Burns for the Perfection of PaperMartín Espada

At sixteen, I worked after high school hoursat a printing plantthat manufactured legal pads:Yellow paperstacked seven feet highand leaningas I slipped cardboardbetween the pages,then brushed red glueup and down the stack.No gloves: fingertips requiredfor the perfection of paper,smoothing the exact rectangle.Sluggish by 9 PM, the handswould slide along suddenly sharp paper,and gather slits thinner than the crevicesof the skin, hidden.The glue would sting,hands oozingtill both palms burnedat the punch clock.

Ten years later, in law school,I knew that every legal padwas glued with the sting of hidden cuts,that every open law bookwas a pair of handsupturned and burning.

from City of Coughing and Dead Radiators, 1993W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY

54. How Many TimesMarie Howe

No matter how many times I try I can't stop my fatherfrom walking into my sister's room

and I can't see any better, leaning from here to lookin his eyes. It's dark in the hall

and everyone's sleeping. This is the pastwhere everything is perfect already and nothing changes,

where the water glass falls to the bathroom floorand bounces once before breaking.

Nothing. Not the small sound my sister makes, turningover, not the thump of the dog's tail

when he opens one eye to see him stumbling back to bedstill drunk, a little bewildered.

This is exactly as I knew it would be.And if I whisper her name, hissing a warning,

I've been doing that for years now, and still the dogstartles and growls until he sees

it's our father, and still the door opens, and shemakes that small oh turning over.

from The Good Thief, 1988Persea Books, New York, NY

55. LocalsJames Lasdun

They peopled landscapes casually like trees,being there richly, never having gone there,and whether clanning in cities or village-thin standswere reticent as trees with those not born there,and their fate, like trees, was seldom in their hands.

Others to them were always one of twoevils: the colonist or refugee.They stared back, half-disdaining us, half-fearing;inferring from our looks their destinyas preservation or as clearing.

I envied them. To be local was to knowwhich team to support: the local team;

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where to drop in for a pint with mates: the local;best of all to feel by birthright welcomeanywhere; be everywhere a local ...

Bedouin-Brython-Algonquins; always therebefore you; the original prior claimthat made your being anywhere intrusive.There, doubtless, in Eden before Adamwiped them out and settled in with Eve.

Whether at home or away, whether kidsplaying or saying what they wanted,or adults chatting, waiting for a bus,or, in their well-tended graves, the contented dead,there were always locals, and they were never us.

from Landscape with Chainsaw, 2001W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY

56. Tuesday 9:00 AMDenver Butson

A man standing at the bus stopreading the newspaper is on fireFlames are peeking outfrom beneath his collar and cuffsHis shoes have begun to melt

The woman next to him wants to mention it to himthat he is burningbut she is drowningWater is everywherein her mouth and earsin her eyesA stream of water runssteadily from her blouse

Another woman stands at the bus stopfreezing to deathShe tries to stand near the manwho is on fireto try to melt the iciclesthat have formed on her eyelashesand on her nostrilsto stop her teeth long enoughfrom chattering to say somethingto the woman who is drowning

but the woman who is freezing to deathhas trouble movingwith blocks of ice on her feet

It takes the three some timeto board the buswhat with the flamesand water and iceBut when they finally climb the stairs and take their seatsthe driver doesn't even noticethat none of them has paidbecause he is torturedby visions and is wonderingif the man who got off at the last stopwas really being mauled to deathby wild dogs.

from Triptych, 1999The Commoner Press, New York

57. My Moral LifeMark Halliday

Two years hence. When I'm ready.After one more set of poemsabout my beautiful confusion.After I've read Anna Kareninaand Don Quixoteand the first volume at least of Proustand one big novel by Thomas Mann—say three years. Three years hence:

after I've written an essay about the word "enough"and after I've done something so delectableweaving together phrases from Henry James and Bob Dylanand after I've written an amazing meditation on Luis Buñueland after I've spent a month in Frankfort, Michiganbeing very real and thoughtful and full of perspectiveand fresh cherry piethen—then—

in four years at the most—

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I see it there ahead of me casting a silver shadowback upon me now, bathing me in its promise,validating the self that will arrive at itin four years or less (maybe just two years?)...Glimpsing it there is sometimes like already living italmost and feeling justifiably proud.Water pollution and toxic waste and air pollution;the poverty of black people in my city;the nuclear arms industry; in my moral life these thingsare not just TV, they push my poems to the edge of my desk,they push Henry James into a sweet corner,they pull me to meetings and rallies and marchesand meetings and rallies and marches. There I am in a raincoat on the steps of City Halldisappointed by the turnout but speaking firmlyinto the local news microphone about the issue,the grim issue.When I'm ready.Four years from today!Silver shadow

from Tasker Street, 1992University of Massachusetts Press

58. Once upon a Time There Was a ManMac Hammond

Once upon a time there was, there was a manWho lived inside me wearing this cold armour,The kind of knight of whom the ladies could be proudAnd send with favours through unlikely forestsTo fight infidels and other knights and ordinary dragons.Once upon a time he galloped over deep green moatsOn bridges princes had let down in friendshipAnd sat at board the honoured guest of kingsTalking like a man who knew the world by heart.In every list he fought, the trumpets on the parapets,The drums, declared his mastery, the art of arms;His horse, the household word of every villager,Was silver-shod and, some said, winged.Once upon a time, expecting no adventureIn the forest everybody knows, at midnight,He saw a mountain rise beneath the moon.

An incredible beast? With an eye of fire?He silently dismounted, drew his famous swordAnd hid behind the heavy tress and shrubs to seeIf what he thought he saw was real. He fledAnd the giant eye of the moon pursues him still.

from The Horse Opera and Other Poems, 1992Ohio State University Press

59. LegsMark Halliday

In the last year of my marriage,among a hundred other symptoms I wrote a poem called"The Woman across the Shaft"—she was someoneI never met—she had long bare legson a summer night when she answered the phonein her kitchen and lifted her legs to the tablewhile she talked and laughed and I tried to listenfrom my window across an airshaft between buildingsand watched her legs. I doubt she was beautifulbut her legs were young and longand she laughed on the phone

while I sat in my dark of dissolving faith

and I tried to capture or contain the unknown womanin a poem: the real and the ideal,the mess of frayed bonds versus untouched possibility,so forth. Embarrassed nowI imagine a female editorwho received "The Woman across the Shaft"as a submission to her magazine—the distaste she felt—perhaps disgust she felt—I imagine hergrimacing slightly as she considers writing "Pathetic"on the rejection slip but instead lets the slip stay blankand then returns to another envelopefrom a writer she has learned to trust,crossing her long legs on her smart literary desk.

from Selfwolf, 1988

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Ohio University, Athens, OH

60. NoticeSteve Kowit

This evening, the sturdy Levi'sI wore every day for over a year& which seemed to the endin perfect condition,suddenly tore.How or why I don't know,but there it was: a big rip at the crotch.A month ago my friend Nickwalked off a racquetball court,showered,got into this street clothes,& halfway home collapsed & died.Take heed, you who read this,& drop to your knees now & againlike the poet Christopher Smart,& kiss the earth & be joyful,& make much of your time,& be kindly to everyone,even to those who do not deserve it.For although you may not believe it will happen,you too will one day be gone,I, whose Levi's ripped at the crotchfor no reason,assure you that such is the case.Pass it on.

from The Dumbbell Nebula, 2000Heyday Books

61. Unconditional DayJulie Lechevsky

At 13 they brought me on televisionto tell of my first loveunder the bleachers.I thought it was the real thing.And the country shared it the waythey share candy on Halloween,when I could dress up in anything as anyone,and strangers would open their doors,

bending kindly to ask, Who are you?

Sometimes I'd say,I am a Dallas Cheerleader!or The Wicked Witch of the West!I was myself one evening every yearfrom six to eight o'clock,as the orange lanterns gleamedon my claws, my beak, my fangs,or my star, my wand, my slippers.

Halloween was the perfect holiday.No songs about snow and families,no creamed onions or long, fantastic graces,no football games I had to watch in the yard,just a night of flowing capes and almond eye slits,of makeup without quarrels,and sheets without memories.Mother would slave over my costumeas though I was a turkey dinner for my uncles.After a while, only my dog could recognize me.

Even now, nineteen, I go out,gaudy with ugliness and streaming with beauty.the doors are opened and I feelI could not have turned out better.

from Poems and Plays, Number 8, Spring / Summer 2001Middle Tennessee State University

62. The BirthdayElizabeth Seydel Morgan

I'm driving tonight into November.The cold black sky is coming at meand before I know itit snuffs out the gold October glowI left behind in Charlottesville,those calendar leaves, the big ball sunsetting behind the rolling steeplechase-its little obstacles casting shadows-the lighted windows on the darkening hill,silhouettes of hosts in my rearview mirror,the last orange light on Foxfield Road.Into the dark I can speed east and thinkof the last night in October, Halloween,

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when you were born thirty years ago.

Or I could not think of that night,I know you'll be glad if I don't. It's stilltoday in Los Angeles, you're looking for work. We're both looking for workto keep us in days to get up.I like this night highway blacking outautumn, making us one with all seasons.Only my headlights and pairs of red taillightsahead, you turning thirty where the leaves neverfall, the children not masked yet, the last sunof the month still in the sky.

from Five Points, Summer 2001 Volume 5, Number 3Georgia State University

63. How to ListenMajor Jackson

I am going to cock my head tonight like a dogin front of McGlinchy's Tavern on Locust;I am going to stand beside the man who works all day combinghis thatch of gray hair corkscrewed in every direction.I am going to pay attention to our livesunraveling between the forks of his fine-tooth comb.For once, we won't talk about the end of the worldor Vietnam or his exquisite paper shoes.For once, I am going to ignore the profanity andthe dancing and the jukebox so I can hear his head cracklebeneath the sky's stretch of faint stars.

from Leaving Saturn, 2002The University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA

64. ImmortalityLisel Mueller

In Sleeping Beauty's castlethe clock strikes one hundred yearsand the girl in the tower returns to the

world.So do the servants in the kitchen,who don't even rub their eyes.The cook's right hand, liftedan exact century ago,completes its downward arcto the kitchen boy's left ear;the boy's tensed vocal cordsfinally let gothe trapped, enduring whimper,and the fly, arrested mid-plungeabove the strawberry pie,fulfills its abiding missionand dives into the sweet, red glaze.

As a child I had a bookwith a picture of that scene.I was too young to noticehow fear persists, and howthe anger that causes fear persists,that its trajectory can't be changedor broken, only interrupted.My attention was on the fly;that this slight bodywith its transparent wingsand lifespan of one human daystill craved its particular shareof sweetness, a century later.

from Alive Together: New & Selected Poems, 1996Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, LA

65. Our Other Sister for EllenJeffrey Harrison

The cruelest thing I did to my younger sisterwasn't shooting a homemade blowdart into her knee,where it dangled for a breathless second

before dropping off, but telling her we hadanother, older sister who'd gone away.What my motives were I can't recall: a whim,

or was it some need of mine to toy with loss,to probe the ache of imaginary wounds?But that first sentence was like a strand of DNA

26

that replicated itself in coiling lieswhen my sister began asking her desperate questions.I called our older sister Isabel

and gave her hazel eyes and long blonde hair.I had her run away to Californiawhere she took drugs and made hippie jewelry.

Before I knew it, she'd moved to Santa Feand opened a shop. She sent a postcardevery year or so, but she'd stopped calling.

I can still see my younger sister staring at me,her eyes widening with desolationthen filling with tears. I can still remember

how thrilled and horrified I wasthat something I'd just made uphad that kind of power, and I can still feel

the blowdart of remorse stabbing me in the heartas I rushed to tell her none of it was true.But it was too late. Our other sister

had already taken shape, and we could notcall her back from her life far awayor tell her how badly we missed her.

from Feeding the Fire, 2001Sarabande Books, Louisville, KY

66. Bike Ride with Older BoysLaura Kasischke

The one I didn't go on.

I was thirteen,and they were older.I'd met them at the public pool. I must

have given them my number. I'm sure

I'd given them my number,knowing the girl I was. . .

It was summer. My afternoons

were made of time and vinyl.My mother worked,but I had a bike. They wanted

to go for a ride.Just me and them. I saidokay fine, I'dmeet them at the Stop-n-Goat four o'clock.And then I didn't show.

I have been given a little gift—something sweetand inexpensive, somethingI never worked or asked or saidthank you for, mostdays not awareof what I have been given, or what I missed—

because it's that, too, isn't it?I never saw those boys again.I'm not as dumbas they think I am

but neither am I wise. Perhaps

it is the bestafternoon of my life. Twocute and older boyspedaling beside me—respectful, awed. When we

turn down my street, the other girls see me ...

Everything as I imagined it would be.

Or, I am in a vacant field. When Istand up again, there are bits of glass and gravelground into my knees.I will never love myself again.Who knew thenthat someday I would be

thirty-seven, wipingcrumbs off the kitchen table with a sponge, rememberingthem, thinkingof this—

those boys still waiting

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outside the Stop-n-Go, smokingcigarettes, growing older. from Dance and Disappear, 2002University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, MA

67. LoyalWilliam Matthews

They gave him an overdoseof anesthetic, and its fogshut down his heart in seconds.I tried to hold him, but he was somewhere else. For so much loveone of the principals is missing,it's no wonder we confuse lovewith longing. Oh I was thick with both. I wanted my dogto live forever and while I wasworking on impossibilitiesI wanted to live forever, too.I wanted company and to be alone.I wanted to know how they trasha stiff ninety-five-pound dogand I paid them to do itand not tell me. What else?I wanted a letter of apologydelivered by decrepit hand,by someone shattered for each timeI'd had to eat pure pain. I wantedto weep, not "like a baby,"in gulps and breath-stretchinghowls, but steadily, like an adult,according to the fictionthat there is work to be done,and almost inconsolably.

from Selected Poems and Translations 1969-1991, 1992Houghton Mifflin, New York, NY

68. BreakDorianne Laux

We put the puzzle together pieceby piece, loving how one curvednotch fits so sweetly with another.A yellow smudge becomes

the brush of a broom, and two blue armsfill in the last of the sky.We patch together porch swings and autumntrees, matching gold to gold. We holdthe eyes of deer in our palms, a pairof brown shoes. We do this as the childcircles her room, impatientwith her blossoming, tiredof the neat house, the made bed,the good food. We let her broodas we shuffle through the pieces,setting each one into place with a satisfiedtap, our backs turned for a few hoursto a world that is crumbling, a skythat is falling, the pieceswe are required to return to. from Awake, 2001University of Arkansas Press

69. BlindCharles Webb

It's okay if the world goes with Venetian;Who cares what Italians don't see?-Or with Man's Bluff (a temporary problemHealed by shrieks and cheating)-or with date:Three hours of squirming repaid by laughs for years.

But when an old woman, already deaf,Wakes from a night of headaches, and the darkWon't disappear-when doctors call like tediousBirds, "If only..." up and down hospital halls-When, long-distance, I hear her say, "Don't worry.

Honey, I'll be fine," is it a wonderIf my mind speeds down blind alleys?If the adage "Love is blind" has never seemedSo true? If, in a flash of blinding lightI see Justice drop her scales, yank off

Her blindfold, stand revealed - a monster-godWith spidery arms and a mouth like a black hole-While I leap, ant-sized, at her feet, blindedBy tears, raging blindly as, sense by sense, My mother is sucked away?

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from Reading the Water, 1997Northeastern University Press

70. The HandMary Ruefle

The teacher asks a question.You know the answer, you suspectyou are the only one in the classroomwho knows the answer, because the personin question is yourself, and on thatyou are the greatest living authority,but you don’t raise your hand.You raise the top of your deskand take out an apple.You look out the window.You don’t raise your hand and there issome essential beauty in your fingers,which aren’t even drumming, but lieflat and peaceful.The teacher repeats the question.Outside the window, on an overhanging branch,a robin is ruffling its feathersand spring is in the air.

From Cold Pluto, 1996, 2001Carnegie Mellon University Press

71. Some CloudsSteve Kowit

Now that I've unplugged the phone,no one can reach me-At least for this one afternoonthey will have to get by without my adviceor opinion.Now nobody else is going to call& ask in a tentative voiceif I haven't yet heard that she's dead,that woman I once loved-nothing but ashes scattered over a citythat barely itself any longer exists.Yes, thank you, I've heard.It had been too lovely a morning.That in itself should have warned me.The sun lit up the tangerines& the blazing poinsettias

like so many candles.For one afternoon they will have to forgive me.I am busy watching things happen againthat happened a long time ago.as I lean back in Josephine's lawnchairunder a sky of incredible blue,broken - if that is the word for it - by a few billowing clouds,all white & unspeakably lovely,drifting out of one nothingness into another.

from Mysteries of the Body, 1994Uroboros Books

72. Schoolboys with Dog, WinterWilliam Matthews

It’s dark when they scuff off to school.It’s good to trample the thin panes of casualice along the track where twice a week

a freight that used to stop here lugs grainand radiator hoses past us to a larger town.It’s good to cloud the paling mirror

of the dawn sky with your mouthwashed breath,and to trash and stamp against the wayyou’ve been overdressed and pudged

into your down jacket like a pastelsausage, and to be cruel to the cringingdog and then to thump it and hug it and croon

to it nicknames. At last the pale sun rollsover the horizon. And look!The frosted windows of the schoolhouse gleam.

from Foreseeable Futures, 1987Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, NY

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73. The End and the BeginningWislawa Szymborska

After every warsomeone has to clean up.Things won'tstraighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubbleto the side of the road,so the corpse-filled wagonscan pass.

Someone has to get miredin scum and ashes,sofa springs,splintered glass,and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girderto prop up a wall,Someone has to glaze a window,rehang a door.

Photogenic it's not,and takes years.All the cameras have leftfor another war.

We'll need the bridges back,and new railway stations.Sleeves will go raggedfrom rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,still recalls the way it was.Someone else listensand nods with unsevered head.But already there are those nearbystarting to mill aboutwho will find it dull.

From out of the bushessometimes someone still unearthsrusted-out argumentsand carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knewwhat was going on here

must make way forthose who know little.And less than little.And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrowncauses and effects,someone must be stretched outblade of grass in his mouthgazing at the clouds.

from Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska, 2001W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY

74. DaddySylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not doAny more, black shoeIn which I have lived like a footFor thirty years, poor and white,Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.You died before I had time ----Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,Ghastly statue with one gray toeBig as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish AtlanticWhere it pours bean green over blueIn the waters off the beautiful Nauset.I used to pray to recover you.Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish townScraped flat by the rollerOf wars, wars, wars.But the name of the town is common.My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.So I never could tell where youPut your foot, your root,I never could talk to you.The tongue stuck in my jaw.

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It stuck in a barb wire snare.Ich, ich, ich, ich,I could hardly speak.I thought every German was you.And the language obscene

An engine, an engine,Chuffing me off like a Jew.A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.I began to talk like a Jew.I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of ViennaAre not very pure or true.With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luckAnd my Taroc pack and my Taroc packI may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.And your neat mustacheAnd your Aryan eye, bright blue.Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You ----

Not God but a swastikaSo black no sky could squeak through.Every woman adores a Fascist,The boot in the face, the bruteBrute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,In the picture I have of you,A cleft in your chin instead of your footBut no less a devil for that, no notAny less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.I was ten when they buried you.At twenty I tried to dieAnd get back, back, back to you.I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,And they stuck me together with glue.And then I knew what to do.I made a model of you,A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.

And I said I do, I do.So daddy, I'm finally through.The black telephone's off at the root,The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two ----The vampire who said he was youAnd drank my blood for a year,Seven years, if you want to know.Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heartAnd the villagersnever liked you.They are dancing and stamping on you.They always knew it was you.Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

75. CutSylvia Plath for Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ----My thumb instead of an onion.The top quite goneExcept for a sort of hinge

Of skin,A flap like a hat,Dead white.Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,The Indian's axed your scalp.Your turkey wattleCarpet rolls

Straight from the heart.I step on it,Clutching my bottleOf pink fizz. A celebration, this is.Out of a gapA million soldiers run,Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they on?O myHomunculus, I am ill.I have taken a pill to kill

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The thinPapery feeling.Saboteur,Kamikaze man ----

The stain on yourGauze Ku Klux KlanBabushkaDarkens and tarnishes and whenThe balledPulp of your heartConfronts its smallMill of silence

How you jump ----Trepanned veteran,Dirty girl,Thumb stump.

76. Anna Who Was MadAnne Sexton

Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit.When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages.Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive.Say not I did.Say not.Say.

Speak Mary-words into our pillow.Take me the gangling twelve-year-oldinto your sunken lap.Whisper like a buttercup.Eat me. Eat me up like cream pudding.Take me in.Take me.Take.

Give me a report on the condition of my soul.Give me a complete statement of my actions.Hand me a jack-in-the-pulpit and let me listen in.Put me in the stirrups and bring a tour group through.

Number my sins on the grocery list and let me buy.Did I make you go insane? Did I turn up your earphone and let a siren drive through? Did I open the door for the mustached psychiatristwho dragged you out like a gold cart? Did I make you go insane? From the grave write me, Anna! You are nothing but ashes but neverthelesspick up the Parker Pen I gave you.Write me.Write. 77. For My Lover, Returning to His WifeAnne Sexton

She is all there. She was melted carefully down for you and cast up from your childhood, cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies. She has always been there, my darling. She is, in fact, exquisite. Fireworks in the dull middle of February and as real as a cast-iron pot. Let's face it, I have been momentary. A luxury. A bright red sloop in the harbor. My hair rising like smoke from the car window. Littleneck clams out of season. She is more than that. She is your have to have, has grown you your practical your tropical growth. This is not an experiment. She is all harmony. She sees to oars and oarlocks for the dinghy, has placed wild flowers at the window at breakfast, sat by the potter's wheel at midday, set forth three children under the moon, three cherubs drawn by Michelangelo, done this with her legs spread out in the terrible months in the chapel. If you glance up, the children are there like delicate balloons resting on the ceiling. She has also carried each one down the hall after supper, their heads privately bent, two legs protesting, person to person, her face flushed with a song and their little sleep. I give you back your heart. I give you permission - for the fuse inside her, throbbing angrily in the dirt, for the bitch in her and the burying of her wound -

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for the burying of her small red wound alive - for the pale flickering flare under her ribs, for the drunken sailor who waits in her left pulse, for the mother's knee, for the stocking, for the garter belt, for the call - the curious call when you will burrow in arms and breasts and tug at the orange ribbon in her hair and answer the call, the curious call. She is so naked and singular She is the sum of yourself and your dream. Climb her like a monument, step after step. She is solid. As for me, I am a watercolor. I wash off. 78. A Paper BagMargaret Atwood

I make my head, as I used to, out of a paper bag,pull it down to the collarbone,

draw eyes around my eyeswith purple and greenspikes to show surprise,a thumb-shaped nose,

a mouth around my mouthpenciled by touch, then colored inflat red.

With this new head, the body nowstretched like a stocking and exhausted coulddance again; if I made a tongue I could sing.

An old sheet and it’s Halloween;but why is it worse or morefrightening, this pinfacehead of square hair and no chin?

Like an idiot, it has no pastand is always entering the futurethrough its slots of eyes, purblindand groping with its thick smile,a tentacle of perpetual joy.

Paper head, I prefer you

because of your emptiness;from within you anyword could still be said.

from Selected Poems II, 1987Houghton Mifflin, Boston

79. A Poem of FriendshipNikki Giovanni

We are not loversbecause of the lovewe makebut the lovewe have

We are not friendsbecause of the laughswe spendbut the tearswe save

I don’t want to be near youfor the thoughts we sharebut the words we never haveto speak

I will never miss youbecause of what we dobut what we aretogether

from The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, 2003