Issue 64

after Fragonard When the first crocuses, the ones called golden crowns and the ones called midnights, push up through February’s mausoleum ground, I think of Fragonard, his patrons dead, the Terror over, the stays of his golden swing now cut. And I am tempted to lie down, even though the ground is cold, and listen…

You let your feet decide how to walk it, andante or andantino— only allow your breathing to become what wind is in the eucalyptus, now a susurrus, now a slow erasure of distractions. Cries from the soccer field and the street noise in Skala dissolve in the attention the stones require you give each footfall.…

To cure the hard habit of anger, eat an orange so slowly the juice spills from your fingers and waters the wild gladioli that purple the stones on high Kastelli. To learn patience, go with Ritsa to the little stoa of a shop in Skala, where old Pandalis weighs the small bags of chickpeas and…

Early light brightens the blue shutters, overspilling the foot of the bed we sleep in. It is quiet yet…deep and tidal when I hear the light say, You will not be given to do everything you want. I remain quiet, as nearly poised as the edge of salt in the air that fills the room.…

(1994) FROM THE BREAKFAST BUFFET, Aurora slipped an apple and a banana into the pockets of her apron before opening the doors of the Seneca Hotel café. She looked around for the two skinny, towheaded schoolboys who often sidled up to accept her secret handouts. She never gave them donuts or sugary drinks, but always…

THE ROYAL SOAP OPERA that is the life and reign of Henry VIII evokes endless fascination both in the realms of scholarship and the popular imagination. Erudite tomes heavy with footnotes, racy novels the size of toaster ovens, and sumptuously staged television miniseries pour forth in a steady stream. And what’s not to like? For…