April Is: National Poetry Month

Dear Proofreader David Hernandez You're right. I meant “midst,” not “mist.” I don't know what

Fourteen Marie Howe She is still mine—for another year or so— but she's already looking past me

You Belong to the World Carrie Fountain as do your children, as does your husband. It's strange

Love Comes Quietly Robert Creeley Love comes quietly, finally, drops about me, on me, in the old ways

Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian

The Wordsworth Effect Joyce Sutphen Is when you return to a place and it's not nearly as amazing

Broken Periodic Maya C. Popa No one who has ever had a childhood wants what's happening. No one

A Small Psalm Catherine Wing Sorrow be gone, be a goner, be forsooth un-sooth, make like a suit and

The Coffin Maker Speaks Lisa Suhair Majaj At first it was shocking—orders flooding in faster than I

The Winter Palace Philip Larkin Most people know more as they get older: I give all that the cold

Physical Therapy Franny Choi Ask, first, what your smallest body parts require to sing again: coconut

As If to Demonstrate an Eclipse Billy Collins I pick an orange from a wicker basket and place it on

The First Line is the Deepest Kim Addonizio I have been one acquainted with the spatula, the slotted,

First Birthday Brad Leithauser You have your one word, which fills you to brimming. It's

May 5, 2020 John Okrent It is beautiful to be glad to see a person every time you see them, as I was

Coyotes by the Eliot House Glyn Maxwell Tom I've a question and all I have is a question. There

Positivity DA Powell “Anyway, it isn't forever,” Chris said, “eventually you're dead.” And we

from Understory Craig Santos Perez (to my wife, nālani and our 7-month old daughter, kai) kai cries

vocabulary Safia Elhillo fact: the arabic word هواء (hawa) means wind thearabicwordهوى (hawa) means

Oral History of Insatiability Jason Myers I woke in the wreck of history still drowsy, a dryness in

June Alex Dimitrov There will never be more of summer than there is now. Walking alone through Union

To Be Alive Gregory Orr To be alive: not just the carcass but the spark. That's crudely put, but.

from Burial Ross Gay You're right, you're right, the fertilizer's good— it wasn't a

For the Dogs Who Barked at Me on the Sidewalks in Connecticut Hanif Abdurraqib Darlings, if your

Still Life with Nursing Bra Keetje Kuipers Fall open, unfold me. Hook and eye undone with one hand,

Lit Andrea Cohen Everyone can't be a lamplighter. Someone must be the lamp, and someone must, in

Search Patrols Ilya Kaminsky I cover the eyes of Gena, 7, and Anushka, 2, as their father drops his

Dearest, Jean Valentine this day broke at ten degrees. I swim in bed over some dream sentence lost at

What I Did Wrong Marie Howe Slapped the man's face, then slapped it again, broke the plate, broke

Wound is the Origin of Wonder Maya C. Popa A cross-breeze between this life and the imagined one. I