Sunflowers by Jenny George
"Having died / all the way back to the root, I grow again / into a version of the thing I 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."
If Life Is As Short As Our Ancestors Insist It Is, Why Isn’t Everything I Want Already At My Feet by Hanif Abdurraqib
"I am a simple man. I want, mostly, / a year that will not kill me when it is over."
Performance After the End of the World by Talin Tahajian
"I’ve never been good / at caring very much about language except / when it matters the most."
untitled by Rachel McKibbens
"Last Love, I am all that is left. Forgive me. / I did not see you coming. Forgive me. // Last Love, every day without you was a life / I crawled out of. Amen."
The Attic and Its Nails by Naomi Shihab Nye
"It’s hard up there. You dig in a box for whatever the moment requires: sweater, wreath, the other half of the walky-talky, and find twelve things you forgot about