“the new grocery store sells real cheese, edging out the plastic bodega substitute. the new neighbors know how to feed their children, treat themselves to oysters sometimes. other times, to brunch. finally, some good pastrami around these parts. new cafe on broadway. new trees in the sidewalk. everyo…”— Franny Choi, apmpodcasts.org
“lay me down on eye-white snow my slow brooding bed of robin wings my body slit & smearing everywhere. I will not name this new opening a wound. here, there is no pain I didn’t beg for. I heard the howl, didn’t dare run. stood waiting for the sweet blades of jaw & claw. you found me wasted no time ma…”— Danez Smith, apmpodcasts.org
“Because the road to our house is a back road, meadowlands punctuated by gravel quarry and lumberyard, there are unexpected travelers some nights on our way home from work. Once, on the lawn of the Tool and Die Company, a swan; the word doesn’t convey the shock of the thing, white architecture rippli…”— Mark Doty, apmpodcasts.org
“I had a beautiful dream I was dancing with a tree. —Sandra Cisneros Some things on this earth are unspeakable: Genealogy of the broken— A shy wind threading leaves after a massacre, Or the smell of coffee and no one there— Some humans say trees are not sentient beings, But they do not understand poe…”— Joy Harjo, apmpodcasts.org
“How wide the sidewalks were! You stood in the middle of ours. Definite and debonair. Mama with a big black Patent leather handbag. Strap Draped over her arm. Chic. Loose coat holding no baby inside. Madaddy suited, slanted wide brim hat. At attention As if he were seeing Paris After the war. All smi…”— Angela Jackson, apmpodcasts.org
“after Nazim Hikmet, for & after Rassan At the Detroit Metro Airport with the turtle-hours to spare between now & my flight, there is such a thing as the kindness of the conveyor belt who lends me its slow, strange mollusk foot as I stand quiet, exhausted, having been alone in my bed for days now, sl…”— Aracelis Girmay, apmpodcasts.org
“He didn’t invite me to the wedding. Am I some kind of ghost? A few roses blown open. People kept trooping back and forth in downpour to view the thorny stalks. I saw the photos. Am I shameful? Even from far away you can tell someone’s age by how her body moves. What bird by the steadiness of its win…”— Melissa Stein, apmpodcasts.org
“Our dead friend used to say when she reached menopause the swamp cleared from her mind the sun shone brightly for the first time since girlhood she could think clearly things were outlined as if in lights a dog was a dog and a man was only a man ~ Imprisoned in the arms of Eros you relax you blur yo…”— Alicia Suskin Ostriker, apmpodcasts.org
“When the doctor suggested surgery and a brace for all my youngest years, my parents scrambled to take me to massage therapy, deep tissue work, osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine unspooled a bit, I could breathe again, and move more in a body unclouded by pain. My mom would tell me to sing songs t…”— Ada Limon, apmpodcasts.org
“A difficult climb to a beautiful view— I don’t like it. I don’t like the way you make me go positively Protestant all this deferral up to a future only you’ve seen the ascent always leveraged against an alien payoff already prescripted. When we get there I’ll be dead tired too tired to view the view…”— Marie Howe, apmpodcasts.org
“The people Jesus loved were shopping at The Star Market yesterday. An old lead-colored man standing next to me at the checkout breathed so heavily I had to step back a few steps. Even after his bags were packed he still stood, breathing hard and hawking into his hand. The feeble, the lame, I could h…”— Marie Howe, apmpodcasts.org
“there’s a cosmic storm whenever he’s in my orbit five races at war outside time, trapped in one spindly high-toned body, knobby elbows and knees the rigorously loving teachings of mom and dad take root despite media engineering and peer pressures. the snippy cuttings, mouthy snipings, and cheeky wit…”— Wanda Coleman, apmpodcasts.org
“There’s no one left to see his hands lifting from the engine bay, dark and gnarled as roots dripping river mud, no one to see how his palms — slabs of callus from scouring the long throats of chimneys, hauling mortar and brick — move in the fabricated light. Thumb-knuckle thick and white as a grub w…”— Edgar Kunz, apmpodcasts.org
“Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked any thing. A guest, I answered, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he. I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah…”— George Herbert, apmpodcasts.org
“A river, wanting to go downhill will carve new tributaries, tear through homes, flood the roots of trees. The therapist tells you your mind is swollen with doom that carries you in its white rush, torrents ripping through rock and root. I don’t know in what direction love pulls me. But I do know the…”— Bao Phi, apmpodcasts.org
“They said to say goodnight And not goodbye, unplugged The TV when it rained. They hid Money in mattresses So to sleep on decisions. Some of their children Were not their children. Some Of their parents had no birthdates. They could sweat a cold out Of you. They’d wake without An alarm telling them t…”— Jericho Brown, apmpodcasts.org
“Gotta love us brown girls, munching on fat, swinging blue hips, decked out in shells and splashes, Lawdie, bringing them woo hips. As the jukebox teases, watch my sistas throat the heartbreak, inhaling bassline, cracking backbone and singing thru hips. Like something boneless, we glide silent, seepi…”— Patricia Smith, apmpodcasts.org
“He is not as young as he used to be. With a groan he chooses a sizable canvas. He broods on it. He wastes his time haggling about his commission with a mean Carmelite monk from the Abruzzi, prior, or canon, or whatnot. It is winter now. His finger joints start cracking like the brushwood in the fire…”— Hans Magnus Enzensberger, apmpodcasts.org
“Grant me shelter & bread. Grant me porch ledge, mantel. Scented candles, bed. Grant me four walls, a 5-foot fridge & a hall. & maybe four more walls. Yes. Four more walls. & a desk. & a decent laptop, plus pleather rolling chair. So that I might sit & write you a poem, Lord. A psalm praising all you…”— Marcus Wicker, apmpodcasts.org
“You, woman, bearing your losses, the dog’s leash taut in your hand, how can you so blind & quickly pass us on your morning walks? Haven’t you yet learned there are happenings on planes you do not see? The dog knows we are here & have crucial news. When he stops & presses his muzzle to the air, can’t…”— Crystal Williams, apmpodcasts.org