Resurrection Biology

by Laura Orem

Bring out the dead–the passenger
pigeon and Carolina parakeet,
the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo,
the mammoth still sleeping
in icy Neolithic dreams.

Unspool them in ribbons and splice
the shredded places …

The Next War

by Wilfred Owen

War’s a joke for me and you,
While we know such dreams are true.
–Siegfried Sassoon

Out there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death,–
Sat down and eaten with him, …

86

by Don Yorty

I’m cooking while I write this sonnet
poaching asparagus sprinkling them all
with some chili powder shaking the stalks
squeezing on a lemon. These tastes will set
and mix as …

Cineplex, Fire Exit

by Elizabeth Powell

We go to the Cineplex like some go get mega-churched,
but your truth French-cactuses my tongue

during previews, known in marketing as premonitions.
Air-conditioned caramel sticks in my fillings, scolds me

of …

Brooding Grief

by D.H. Lawrence

A yellow leaf from the darkness
Hops like a frog before me.
Why should I start and stand still?

I was watching the woman that bore me
Stretched in the brindled …

October

by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they …

Positive

by Arthur Vogelsang

Here’s what I like about humans.
Every time I talk to one, it’s a little different.
The events of the hours and the weeks
Know how to get into their …

Traveler

by Donna Hilbert

You come at night to say you’re leaving,
have dreamed of freedom for so long.
and more, you love another—old familiar song.
I call for Mother in my grieving,
but, …

Diplomat

by Justin Jannise

Landlocked since June, housebound for a week,
a train of dominoes derailed across the floor,
some ambassador I am.
And yet there arrives word from the coast:

Freezing rain and windshield …

Near Dusk

by Terry Ann Thaxton

It’s not the first time I’ve walked in woods
with my son, now thirty two, who squats
like a frog about to hop off the log’s edge.
It’s not the …

Jefferson’s Baths

by Chard deNiord

I took off my clothes in the dressing room
and hung them on the nail for all those skins
that one brings in from the decent world.
“No talking please,” …

Alphabet for a Mid-Sized City

Thanks to a Community of Poets, I Grew Into the Central Valley—and This Agricultural California Region Grew Into Me

by Gillian Wegener

Arable
The land around coaxes out
almonds, apricots, walnuts.
At 3 a.m., the call to irrigate.

Bone
We work our fingers to the bone.
We are bone-tired.
C’mon, throw the dog …