Good-bye to Golden Nights
If measuring
one’s life as circular
makes sense of movement,
how should we muscle
meaning into days?
As if we end up
where we’ve dreamt,
starlight for eyes
and train static
within the folds
of memory. . . .
Features
Hit It
You don’t have to believe in the Devil
to end up with him. God’s not so easy.
Say God takes the form of an egret.
Say the Devil also takes the form of an egret.
. . .
All Lines of Order
The Boquillas Trail is located in a remote corner of Big Bend National Park in Texas. It begins with several long steps sloping gently upward, followed by a number of shorter, steeper steps which veer out of sight to the left. The gravelly sand of each step is held in place by a half-buried log, . . .
Read moreHell and Reason
In February 1943, as a boy just shy of his eighteenth birthday, Charles Fisk wrote home to his parents in Massachusetts: “The work I am doing means nothing to me. That is, I don’t understand what the object of it is. Of course, the principle of the whole thing is secrecy, . . .
Read moreLittle Double-Barrel
1.
Her grandmother’s shotgun came to Ms. Hicks by way of her brothers, Tommy and Jack. They insisted she take the thing, she was pretty sure, because A) it was the one weapon of the family’s collection they least wanted and B) they were amused at the idea of her having to own it. . . .
Read moreQueen of England
Dewy and I were not good sons. At home, we sliced the drapes to make togas and blasted birds with pellet guns we weren’t supposed to have. To make our mother nervous, we pressed our skulls to the microwave door and licked the sticky bottoms of our sneakers. At the grocery store, . . .
Read moreStill Lifes and Landscapes
Morning in the mountains. I am going down home
early. The road empty, wide, smooth as my hand.
Sun streams heavy bays of light. If I could remember one
use of beauty, the persistent type, on whole unhuman,
so much more space made for possible peace. . . .
Crossroads of America
In our green Plymouth station wagon, we crisscrossed the map. My mother let me choose our destinations. “Any state but Georgia” was Eve’s rule, though I still memorized the Georgia motto: Wisdom, Justice, Moderation.
Her other rule: we couldn’t stay more than a month in any place. . . .
Read moreSo you will never find me
So you will never find me—
In this life—with a sharp and invisible
Fence, I encircle myself
With honeysuckle, bind myself,
With hoarfrost, cover myself.
So you will never hear me
At night—with a crone’s subtlety:
With reticence—I fortify myself. . . .
Riddle
We do not recognize the body
Of Emmett Till. We do not know
The boy’s name nor the sound
Of his mother wailing. We have
Never heard a mother wailing.
We do not know the history
Of ourselves in this nation. . . .