William Orem – “You are a hundred wild centuries”

“You are a hundred wild centuries” Next to the basil and frothy dill that Spring and the chives in obedient rows she planted catnip, fingering the paper sleeves of seed at the garden store, nothing but curious. For weeks afterward, she forgot. Planting: there was her daughter’s lost tooth (when did they start being worth […]

Jeff Schwartz – Saturday Morning, Beach 3

Saturday Morning, Beach 3 At the end of the street, we can see rescue teams from other towns & firemen carrying oxygen tanks across our neighbor’s lawn. In this sleepy village, toddlers take their first steps at this lake. Lovers paddle at twilight in tilt-proof canoes. Kids learn to cast their lines off the dock. […]

Chryss Yost – Bluster

Bluster The wind makes of the old fence new percussion, gates clacking on their hinges, the hedges creak like springs in an old sofa. All the yard it turns out can make noise, the rocks finding their voice when loose branches clatter down. From inside this old bungalow, easy to imagine Tasmanian swirls of leaf, […]

Christopher Buckley – All the While

All the While                              The bare branches pointing to the place                              Where there’s time for everything                                                         —Amichai The sky’s a blank sheet but for the footnotes of cloud at the bottom, unreadable as ever …. I lived back there in a mid-century gray— from our street to the beach, from the tide-pools and fog- […]

Barbara Ungar – How to Age Gracefully

How to Age Gracefully                You may think sweater set, but you must never, ever wear one.                         —Kate Moss When you kvetch, your son says, Go out in the Adirondacks and get eaten by a wild animal. When X-rays show your bones vanishing, imagine your latter years in a wheelchair, brilliant as Stephen Hawking. Your son, […]