The morning after the upheaval of the night protests, the city was surreally quiet. Waking in the parking garage, Eleanor lifted herself out of the nest of old coats and her backpack on the floor of the backseat. As she drove away from the one sanctuary she could think of as streets were shut down, Eleanor saw evidence of the night’s violence in the strewn litter, broken glass, and the watchful police presence.

We are the best of friends who, but for the whim of fate, might never have met. I would like to say that we grew up together, but that would only be the truth if we started growing up after our fiftieth birthdays

One heart one bod
experience at first handsy
escalating intimacy

They had arrived at the airport late, which is to say, only forty minutes early — something he’d blamed Susan for, even though he was the one who’d decided to pack another suitcase in the morning — so the moment they passed the security check, they broke into a run.

They are like yellow eyes staring from the buttered skillet. Their centers are slightly runny, their whites sizzle softly, and they never stick to the pan.
There is no question of how she would prepare them.

Can you picture it?
Could you make the leap if I asked politely?
Cruising through the interstate, one hand on the wheel, the other on my thigh,
Can you feel that rush, that high?

As always, Monday morning hit me like a shock wave, rudely interrupting whatever dreams I was having. The dreams rarely left me with detailed memories, only a few faint glimpses of somewhere I had never been and people I hardly knew.

Sucks all the helium he can
to escape the blood hound on his tail
for petty thievery & having too much fun.

This year’s Welcome back meeting following the summer break was different. It included a detailed presentation on Generation A.I. Looking around the auditorium, it seemed many other teachers were anxious too. This was our first and only official orientation for this new generation of students.

I’m Theo. I’m seven.
Me, my mom, my Dad, and my sister Ava, we’re in the doctor’s office. The talk doctor.
Mom and Dad are sitting on the shiny blue couch. It made a squeaky sound when they sat down. Ava’s between them. She’s eight. She’s wearing bell-bottoms, just like Mom. She even has a mood ring, just like Mom. She thinks she’s so grown up.

It’s funny because the crystal is pretty. Quite pretty. So, when I stumble across it, nestled in the carpet at the top of the stairs, my first thought is of its beauty. It is white and very clear. Sharp edges. It could have been a sugar crystal. Or it could have been a crystal grown with a kit like the one he got for his birthday when he was little. It had that look. But of course, it’s not that kind of crystal.

He wakes within subways. I rise from bed. Damp floors soil his soles. Rugs ease mine. I pick and choose among possessions for what I’ll need today: a notebook, pen and wallet in a parka’s leftward pocket with my cellphone on the right. A crunched recycled shopping bag for groceries curls in my black cloth glove. All that he’s assembled along his arduous life’s journey stuff a wire shopping cart from which his duck’s gait grows.

Hopelessness—caked in dirt
and tossed aside,
like the bird
with a broken wing

The final days with my mother were interesting. “Interesting” has become an interesting word to me. It’s almost always said as a polite way of saying “bad” or “not for me.” The day-to-day visits with my mother were rarely the same. Some fine. Some difficult. Always, in a good sense, interesting.

You may wonder who will reach
down to perform the necessary miracle,
and when and what: the white bandage,
pristine; the laying on of hands; the soup
and sleep and bread and bed.

My name is Henry Wadsworth. Most prisoners call me Hank. I am proud of that moniker. Rare is the prison wherein there are any guards not loathed by the inmates. To be called Hank means I am an exception, one of the good guys, known to be decent and fair. It’s because I’m a man of faith. I don’t proselytize, though. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. I don’t force my faith on others. I think that’s why the prisoners like me.

It is 7 o’clock in the morning, as usual. On my desk, piles of books and notepads are scattered around the spot where my breakfast—a cup of coffee and a piece of toast topped with a sunny-side-up egg—sits. I’m reading a page from Haruki Murakami’s story “The Wind Cave” in The New Yorker, while Taiwanese pop songs play softly on the computer.

This morning I woke to slow rain,
and remembered waking with you
sprawled across my bed in a toccata
of bones muscles skin and breath.

I fell in love for the first time during the summer of ‘94. It was the summer before my senior year of high school, the same summer Sammy Davis played baseball for the Vermont Expos. He wore Mickey Mantle’s old number seven and manned his old position, center field. The Mick was Dad’s favorite player. Dad grew up west of the Mississippi in the fifties, so he bled Cardinal red. Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, and Enos Slaughter were his Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

When I received the news that I had received a scholarship to study on a year-long Arabic programme in Cairo, my initial excitement was misplaced. The promise of exploring this crazy city and building a new network of connections energised me. I bombarded friends with experience living in Cairo with requests for recommendations: historical sites, ruins, restaurants, hip neighbourhoods. I wanted to see it all. Immediately.

A swan,
His neck a staircase into
The white clouds,
Wings, oars
Of silk,
Toiling
Against
The waves of
Water…

I was admitted through the ED to a step-down unit shortly before midnight on a rainy late July Thursday. My wife, Gwen, had driven me there because of increasing gut pain, but upon intake it was noted that I also had significantly low heart rate and blood pressure. Initial tests provided no immediate explanation for any of the conditions, but because the pain became sufficiently intense that they had to administer a low dose of morphine…

I have not ferried a living soul across the straits since Orpheus and Eurydice. I think of her and how she clung to Orpheus and wept into his chest, and he crooned softly into her hair not daring to open his eyes. Orpheus smelled of sunshine and song. Eurydice smelled narcotic like a field of hyacinths, and smoke. Orpheus calmed her with his beautiful baritone warm as a patch of sunlight in the forest.

I was just a tiny feral kitten when I lost my mother. She went to fetch food like she did every day. My siblings and I would wait on the porch of a house whose family was always traveling. It was freezing more than usual that evening. The loud noises from the roads made us crouch in fear. Then, I heard this screeching sound followed by a door opening and slamming in the street near the house’s porch. I listened to a woman’s cry of anguish.