Echoes by Barbara Guest

Echoes
by Barbara Guest
Once more riding down to Venice on borrowed horses,

the air free of misdemeanor, at rest in the inns of our fathers.
Once again whiteness like the white chandelier.
Echoes of other poems…

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“I May After Leaving You Walk Quickly”

I May After Leaving You Walk Quickly or Even Run
by Matthea Harvey
Rain fell in a post-romantic way.
Heads in the planets, toes tucked
under carpets, that’s how we got our bodies
through. The translator made the sign
for twenty horses backing away from
a lump of sugar. Yes, you.
When I said did you want me
I meant me in the general [...]

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Womanhood –for Mother’s Day

For my mother, who has always worked harder than anyone else I know.
Womanhood
by Catherine Anderson
She slides over
the hot upholstery
of her mother’s car,
this schoolgirl of fifteen
who loves humming & swaying
with the radio.
Her entry into womanhood
will be like all the other girls’–
a cigarette and a joke,
as she strides up with the rest
to a brick factory
where she’ll [...]

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“Their light–pulls so surely. Let it.” Michael Ryan

Reminder
by Michael Ryan
Torment by appetite
is itself an appetite
dulled by inarticulate,
dogged, daily
loving-others-to-death—
as Chekhov put it, “compassion
down to your fingertips”—
looking on them as into the sun
not in the least for their sake
but slowly for your own
because it causes
the blinded soul to bloom
like deliciousness in dirt,
like beauty from hurt,
their light—their light—
pulls so surely. Let it.
When I was fourteen, [...]

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