The sea

The American Poetry Review

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Two Poems

Sep 1, 2023

This poem is for everyperson who will neverread it either by choiceor circumstance I writeit in silence wherethe most realparts of our liveslive like a shoe lostin an alley or an emptyboat in a black sea butmore like the fallenleaf on the other sideo

New Internationalist

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Home

Feb 25, 2019

I once lived in a yellow little house. Each morning, birds convened and sang at my bedroom window. The gate was indigo and inside the garden all kinds of flowers rose to kiss the sunny walls. The yellow nest was filled with cherished books, colourful

The American Scholar

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Five Poems

Mar 4, 2019

for William Gifford, 1928–2015 The river. Always the same, never the same.Poughkeepsie. A place north of where I am.To remember you is to remember Poughkeepsie.To remember Poughkeepsie is to remember the river.I am downriver now & you are a memoryI

Harper's Bazaar India

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Summer: A Love Story

Apr 20, 2021

It is a squalid time. The body grows tired of being a body. Sweat. Always. A thin film of it on the skin. Do not say dewy. Do not say glisten. I dream of endless green. Of wet. Of rain hammering the Earth. Of buds sprouting. I want to insist on life

The American Poetry Review

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Collins Ferry Landing

Jul 1, 2020

for my father Only rivers bottom out like this.Only rivers bottom out with this kind of conviction.Not humans, or, at least, not humans asindisputably human as you were,trapped in consciousness’s surplus, exilic,animalized absurdity, writhing in its

New Philosopher

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Love Letters

Mar 7, 2022

MY BELOVED ANGEL, I am nearly mad about you, as much as one can be mad: I cannot bring together two ideas that you do not interpose yourself between them. I can no longer think of nothing but you. In spite of myself, my imagination carries me to you.

The American Poetry Review

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In the Designed Landscape (Garden of Planes)

Jan 1, 2025

O you rakers of sand, come. I bow, slightly, to the stone ear. It is once againthe season of resemblances. Forfeit, my life, your life, lives livedin the company of doors. Come in, come in, the sound is moist with morning dew.It will perform to your

The Paris Review

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Two Poems by Mary Szybist

Sep 15, 2019

Like an alarm I can’t shut off, the summer.Like air raid sirens stuck onthe world is burning, the world is burning& I can’t stop it. Can’t stop ash from the reddening sky falling dry onto grass, onto cloverlit purple at their tips. Mouth level.My che

The American Poetry Review

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Five Poems

Mar 1, 2019

If we don’t have to bring honesty into this,why bring it, or that’s at least what Ithink the question was, though what I moreremember is how it kept breaking—the question did—the way waves do,touching shore (one, that I shall be punished, two, that t

The American Poetry Review

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Five Poems

May 1, 2019

“My arm is so brown and so beautiful,” is a thought I haveas I’m about to turn off the lamp and go to sleep.I look at it a moment in the soft glow, and see it, briefly,as though it belonged to someone else. A reddishkind of brown, like a toasted almo

The American Poetry Review

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Three Poems

Sep 1, 2019

before I was one I heard every soundas a sound that had never been heard,before I was one I saw every lightas a light separate from dark, colorhidden in a place I had not been.Before I was one I used feet to wakenin water, to pedal through air,hands

The American Poetry Review

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Four Poems

Jan 1, 2024

I’ve always been an easy crier (let it come, not ashamed, never held it back in joy or grief, and wherever … subway, teaching, grocery store, (oh the desolate grocery store during the height of Covid) but now, the welling up: that’s daily now. —Lia P

The American Poetry Review

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The Epic Of Gilgamesh

Jan 1, 2020

My friends, who can reach heaven? The monster bellows like a river swollen with flood.Many are consumed in his fiery breath. My friends, who can reach heaven? Let us ask the mountain for a sign.Let us cut the spirits from the cedars. My friends, who

The American Poetry Review

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Five Poems

May 1, 2023

Let’s be GodFor a moment, Shall we?That which invites Composition,That which is suspended From a great height,The presence Of approximationHeavy in the meadows, I’m not afraid,And yet My shroud vanishesIn these lines, I am so weptPast weeping, And wh

Popshot Magazine

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Joy

May 5, 2022

Remember to think on joy, my love.Remember to think on joy. May it be a steamy, hot bath.Or the incredibly long neck of a giraffe. Crunching a leaf.A crooning song-weep. Sandy shifted, foot-tread whispers.Or the ochre-dusty finger paint, that lingers

The Paris Review

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The Denial Of Death

Sep 15, 2018

I had left my passport at an inn we stayed at for a night or so whose name I couldn’t remember. This is how it began. The next hotel would not receive me. A beautiful hotel, in an orange grove, with a view of the sea. How casually you accepted the ro

Choice Magazine

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Your Poetry

Apr 29, 2022

Email your poems to: (editorial@choicemag.co.uk) or post to Your Poetry, Choice, 4 Milnyard Square, Orton Southgate, Peterborough PE2 6GX I see you all, sitting there in rows.Singing hymns, as your tears do flow. But please don’t cry, not for me.For