Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton
“may you / open your eyes to water / water waving forever / and may you in your innocence / sail through this to that” — Lucille Clifton
Tomorrow is a Place by Sanna Wani
“She laughs and it’s an extension of her body. She laughs and it moves the whole room.” — Sanna Wani
Invitation by Mary Oliver
"it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world." — Mary Oliver
In My Next Life Let Me Be a Tomato by Natasha Rao
"I want to be unabashed, audacious, to gobble / space, to blush deeper each day in the sun, knowing / I'll end up in an eager mouth." — Natasha Rao
To the New Year by W. S. Merwin
"so this is the sound of you / here and now whether or not / anyone hears it" — W. S. Merwin
Wrong Turn by Luci Shaw
"Later that day the radio sang a song from / a time when I was discovering love, / and folded me into itself again." – Luci Shaw
The Light Continues by Linda Gregg
"When the sun / is gone, the light continues / high up in the sky for a while. / When I return, the moon is there. / Like a changing of the guard." — Linda Gregg
Scurvy by Faith Shearin
"All the old // wounds were new, as if / time had undone itself, as if / each injury is permanent, // just waiting to show itself again." – Faith Shearin
Theories of Time and Space by Natasha Trethewey
"Bring only // what you must carry—tome of memory, / its random blank pages." – Natasha Trethewey