Summer by Robin Coste Lewis
"I peeled / a banana. And cursed God—His arrogance, / His gall—to still expect our devotion / after creating love."
Clam by Mary Oliver
"Each one is a small life, but sometimes long, if its / place in the universe is not found out."
Meditations in an Emergency by Cameron Awkward-Rich
"There’s a dream I have in which I love the world. I run from end to end like fingers through her hair."
What We Agreed to Call “Snow” in Yorùbá by I.S. Jones
"Snow is a landscape of loneliness. // It returns to Earth if only to be touched a little longer."
Most Days I Want to Live by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
"And I said, / Then, gosh. What’s the point? / The flowers themselves, / I suppose."
Any Common Desolation by Ellen Bass
"You may have to break / your heart, but it isn’t nothing / to know even one moment alive."
The Art of Fugue Part VI by Jan Zwicky
"The patterns of your life / repeat themselves until you listen. / Forgive this."
Heavy by Mary Oliver
"Have you heard / the laughter / that comes, now and again, / out of my startled mouth?"