How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty—

Despite the open window in the room of long absence, the odor of the rose is still linked with the
breath that was there. Once again we are without previous experience, newcomers, in love. The
rose! The field of its ways would dispel even the effrontery of death. No grating stands in the way.
Desire is alive, an ache in our vaporous foreheads.

Feeling the draft

© Richard Jones

We were young and it was an accomplishment

to have a body. No one said this. No one

Faded pictures

© William Vaughn Moody

NLY two patient eyes to stare

Out of the canvas. All the rest-

Francis Ledwidge

© Grace Hazard Conkling

Nevermore singing

Will you go now,

Fæsulan Idyl

© Heather Fuller

She drew back
The boon she tendered, and then, finding not
The ribbon at her waist to fix it in,
Dropt it, as loth to drop it, on the rest.

Fresh Air

© Kenneth Koch

3

Summer in the trees! “It is time to strangle several bad poets.”
The yellow hobbyhorse rocks to and fro, and from the chimney
Drops the Strangler! The white and pink roses are slightly agitated by the struggle,
But afterwards beside the dead “poet” they cuddle up comfortingly against their vase. They are safer now, no one will compare them to the sea.