Fermanagh Cave By Sherod Santos An emerald dungeon’s blacklight glow glimmered in the deeper reaches where my son and I could hear the slub of water riddling through the muck. We’d stumbled on it following a stream, his first cave made stranger still by a chill that closes on the goblined heart of a boy […]
My Son the Man By Sharon Olds Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider, the way Houdini would expand his body while people were putting him in chains. It seems no time since I would help him to put on his sleeper, guide his calves into the gold interior, zip him up and toss him […]
a song in the front yard By Gwendolyn Brooks I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life. I want a peek at the back Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows. A girl gets sick of a rose. I want to go in the back yard now And maybe down the alley, […]
Are We There Yet By R. Virgil Ellis you’d say, tired of our prompting to see the world as you should: train-thunder as we go under a trestle, smiling face painted on a barn. You’d even get bored looking for signs that had the rare q, x, or z. Are we there yet? So we […]
Fifteen By Leslie Monsour The boys who fled my father’s house in fear Of what his wrath would cost them if he found Them nibbling slowly at his daughter’s ear, Would vanish out the back without a sound, And glide just like the shadow of a crow, To wait beside the elm tree in the […]
At Becky’s Piano Recital By Carl Dennis She screws her face up as she nears the hard parts, Then beams with relief as she makes it through, Just as she did listening on the edge of her chair To the children who played before her, Wincing and smiling for them As if she doesn’t regard […]
Child on top of a Greenhouse By Theodore Roethke The wind billowing out the seat of my britches, My feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty, The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers, Up through the streaked glass, flashing with sunlight, A few white clouds all rushing eastward, A line of elms plunging and […]
Some Boys are Born to Wander By Walt McDonald From Michigan our son writes, How many elk? How many big horn sheep? It’s spring, and soon they’ll be gone above timberline, climbing to tundra by summer. Some boys are born to wander, my wife says, but rocky slopes with spruce and Douglas fir are home. […]
[if mama / could see] By Lucille Clifton if mama could see she would see lucy sprawling limbs of lucy decorating the backs of chairs lucy hair holding the mirrors up that reflect odd aspects of lucy. if mama could hear she would hear lucysong rolled in the corners like lint exotic webs of lucysighs […]
The Cut By Ann and Jane Taylor WELL, what’s the matter ? there’s a face What ! has it cut a vein ? And is it quite a shocking place ? Come, let us look again. I see it bleeds, but never mind That tiny little drop ; I don’t believe you’ll ever find That […]