Making Cents
By Poetry Issue 74
The anvil prints tails. The hammer, heads. Thirty tons of pressure, and a blank copper disk gets Lincoln and the memorial in one bang. Six billion a year, cut out, stamped, and dumped like Danae’s love shower into a tub. Dearer to make than to own, yet we don’t bother to pick one up let…
Read MoreWhen I Meet You
By Poetry Issue 74
the forest will have broken open its green gates to allow me in and I’ll walk through the undergrowth as easily as if there had been a path there though there is nothing but bramble, briar, the scratching blackberry canes how long, I wonder, have you been waiting? I will not know you are there…
Read MoreGlosa
By Poetry Issue 74
On lines from “In Memory of the Spanish Poet Federico Garcia Lorca” by Thomas Merton Where the white bridge rears up its stamping arches Proud as a colt across the clatter of the shallow river, The sharp guitars Have never forgotten your name. I stood up to my knees in the April river and the…
Read MoreAbraham on the Way to the Sacrifice
By Poetry Issue 74
The explosives belt was ticking On his terrified body, And from the wells of his eyes screwed into him That very morning there dripped Farewell tears for Isaac. Soon there are the mountain, altar And cotton-wool faces of the angels. Luckily, a minute before the blast God reminded him there is A God. Translated by…
Read MoreArarat Express
By Poetry Issue 74
For Benny Efrat No one expected the horses to remember the Flood. Time’s nail had rusted in the horseshoe when God Let the wet shout go into the world. Since then warriors raced upon their backs, Nations wandered And the wind’s whip snapped a gallop in their legs. I therefore ask my friends in the…
Read MoreFaith
By Poetry Issue 74
I understand the problem. You make A metaphor to try to heal Something. At its heart is a wound You put there. Write A postcard, send it off—now Believe it will arrive A whole planet away, A lifetime, into another’s hands. Try Not thinking what might go wrong.
Read MoreHabits of Invention
By Poetry Issue 74
Here, in the face of the made, Abandon me. In the dark Where firelight licks Stone walls, begin. I draw My spear and take most Careful aim. Draw the buck The spear is looking for. What if it’s all In my head? I can carry The whole mountain there, The striped cat stalking My shadow.…
Read MoreInto the Chambres of Dora Maar
By Poetry Issue 74
His voice nearly gone _________________(add enough water and pigment thins) she’s listening to the plainsong of doves in the garden, ______________________their__ you__ you __you calling her slowly back to herself until she’s jarred by laughter coming from ______________________________who is it below her window facing the avenue du Général Baron Robert? Footsteps. Three knocks at the…
Read MoreA Fairly Decent Man
By Short Story Issue 74
DON’T TOUCH MY CHILD,” the woman said. She and her son stood in front of me in the checkout line. Her son looked to be four, maybe five. A towhead. I had placed my hand on the short-cropped sunlight for the barest moment. The mother turned the boy toward me and pointed at my face. “Do…
Read MoreElective
By Short Story Issue 74
I DON’T CARE how long you’ve been teaching. Nothing prepares you to handle a fastidious sixteenth-century theologian who wants to write romance novels. A great many questions sprang to mind when John Calvin strode into our classroom that first night. What had he been doing with himself for the past five hundred years? Why a…
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