The Doubt that Breathes Beside You
By Essay Issue 91
1. We are late to church and sneak along the outer edge of the sanctuary, the pine floors creaking under our careful steps. I slide into the pew next to my husband. My leg brushes against him, this man I love, a man who recently lost faith in God. I scan the bulletin and try…
Read MorePort-au-Prince
By Poetry Issue 70
Even at escape velocity, we move so slowly, and having escaped, we walk, run if it suits the moment, always return to walk, a chair, a bed. So slowly, whether on a park trail or a space station treadmill or from the room having kissed a child goodnight. We cannot outpace the sun or moon,…
Read MoreFoundations of a Marvelous Science
By Poetry Issue 77
Three dreams and modernity appear in the scene, hand in hand with misgiving: November 10, 1619 A phantom touch and the soul folded on its lungs and dragged its good half leftward, heart over foot, wheezing and shamed. The phantom mouths blew around and blinded the soul and spun it on its foot like a…
Read MoreAnd Yet another Page and Yet
By Poetry Issue 77
1. One’s waking of itself obtains _____a rising and—one might say—a dazed, __________surprising glee at having met within sleep’s netherworld one’s own _____dim shadowed psyche, and survived. One’s walking soon thereafter well _____into the morning’s modest glare __________proves—if all goes swimmingly—yet further evidence of being _____obliquely well attended, proves discreetly provident of one’s _____invisible surround…
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