Sometimes it is like remembering smells— it is a feeling, not a story you can tell, not a time or a place, not the people you were with but the sense that something deep inside you is reaching out like metal to a magnet. — Alex Chernow, from “museum of Broken lovers,” Boulevard (vol. 30,… Continue reading Alex Chernow
Sleep If sleep is truce, as it is sometimes said,a pure time for the mind to rest and heal,why, when they suddenly wake you, do you feelthat they have stolen everything you had? Why is it so sad to be awake at dawn?It strips us of a gift so strange, so deep,it can be remembered… Continue reading Jorge Luis BorgesJorg
and a world stilled for a secondas if it had stopped breathing as if in the space between breathsthe brain might float like a planet on nothing and the eye open to a flensing, pared downto a pulse and the long less than an instant a word takes to thread one soul to the next… Continue reading Fred Marchant
The dustin my lungs, Knock itout of me. — Marty McConnell, from “Elegy” Court Green 12 (2015)
To forget how you tasted those leggy afternoonswhen our bodies spilledlike wine across the floor, is to admit a hawk into the house.Is to wring a rag of water. When I’m in the thicketwith my smaller hungers,I don’t need to know every cave and what it stores, cooland damp, for you. I don’t needto know… Continue reading Amie Whittemore
At night my prayerslike empty bowls,rattle in the cupboardof my heart,as trains of sadnessrumble through the crossingsof my life. — Ed Block, closing lines to “Prairie Hours,” Parabola (vol. 39, no. 4, Winter 2014-2015)
There is a massof sadnessfloating into the garden. Of courseI go after it. — Corinna Rosendahl, from “Red Moon,” Salt Hill (vol. 36)
I have learned more words since you left […]. I have learnedthat an Indian man severely in love is called Devdas,named after a character in a novel. Reading the bookwith the free time I found in loneliness. — Brian Chander Wiora, from “Love Language,” The Boiler (Winter XXXV,
You remember having lived once or twiceas if you’re made of secondhand sweaters.When you try to think up someone dearin detail, your memory, as every morning, failsto dream. It’s hard to suffer in one sitting,you realize. — Suphil Lee Park, from “Aerial View of Maze,” The Greensboro Review (no. 112, Fall 2022)
The Woman You Love Cuts Apples for You and stirs them in sea salt and vinegarShe takes a drag from her Silk Cut eases again through the fruit’s fleshthe blade stopping short of her thumb You are both sweating at the shoulder (East Ham’s hottest summer) And you realize these are not the times to come… Continue reading Patrick Rosal
The Vale of Soul-Making 