Louise Glück – Figs

“The hours of light when he came home from work— we’d turn them into hours of darkness. Everything was a big secret”

Robert Frost – Fire and Ice

“Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.”

Henri Cole – epivir, d4t, crixivan

“Goaded by your hand, I wrote poems, an essence squeezed out of this matter, memory now”

Jenny Browne – Late Fermata

“although the bones of her face did appear as if at low tide to surface smooth as driftwood where the injured bird might light in the moonlight”

Emily Dickinson – Because I could not stop for Death

“Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.”

Allison Funk – On Pruning

“When winter’s close, cut back the tallest stems, then with soil topped with straw or leaves, bury the plant, make the mound as high as you can, as if the grave were your own impermanent home, as if you believed anything could bloom again.”

Suji Kwock Kim – Monologue for an Onion

“The tears clouding your eyes as the table fills With husks, cut flesh, all the debris of pursuit. Poor deluded human: you seek my heart.”

Richard Howard – L’invitation au voyage

“Wandering with you the shore Which parallels our river Like a second thought, Singular and sad I wore The habit of a lover Almost inside out”

Li-Young Lee – The City In Which I Love You

“If I feel the night move to disclosures or crescendos, it’s only because I’m famished for meaning; the night merely dissolves.”

Gabrielle Calvocoressi – Most Days I Want to Live

“And prayed for myself, which is embarrassing to admit in this day and age. But I did it. Because no one was looking or listening anyway.”

Delmore Schwartz – Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day

“Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn”