Red Tulips, Then Asphodel by Brenda Shaughnessy
“Did I once / feel like a tulip // bending gracefully toward its own root, its own death” — Brenda Shaughnessy
what the ocean said to the black boy by Clint Smith
“they call me blue because / they don't understand how the sky work / they call you black because / they don't understand how god work” — Clint Smith
I Wonder If I Need the Rapture or If I Could Just Swallow A Catastrophe and Call It Good by Kelli Russell Agodon
“In a perfect world, we would slow dance / with someone we love” — Kelli Russell Agodon
An Indian Girl’s Guide To Driving by Urvashi Bahuguna
“Nothing makes me forgive people / like learning I have something to teach them.”
The Talk by Sharon Olds
"She took it and took it and broke, crying out / I hate being a person! diving / into the mother / as if / into / a deep pond
You Can’t Have It All by Barbara Ras
"You can’t bring back the dead, / but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands / as if they meant to spend a lifetime together."
Wild Oats by W. S. Merwin
"I needed my mistakes / in their own order / to get me here" — W. S. Merwin
Autobiographia Literaria by Frank O’Hara
"And here I am, the / center of all beauty! / writing these poems! / Imagine!"