My Life in Verse

Franz Wright, from “East Boston, 1996,” in God’s Silence

— — Doris Lessing, from her Nobel lecture “On not winning the Nobel Prize” 

— Claire Schwartz, from Bound

Rest has come again. The cars push their echoes, reading the road like braille. The tired squeek of a single tricycle rolls home. I look up to see a half-moon not quite included by the Power Co-op/Truck Service signs. It has time yet to land safely in the dark. The last patch of dirt in front of the new GTC has hardened into asphalt. Again, there is time. I find myself folding the laundry more slowly than I could. It is a simple thing to do. A thing missed, like picking fruit or sanding wood. Also the warmth. Clothes have the patience of old friends: with open doors, always on my side.

— Life of the Party, ‘Addendum II to No Baptism’ by Olivia Gatwood (via decreation)

— Robert Frost

Nikki Giovanni, from “Adulthood II”

“Acknowledgements,” Franny Choi

lucille clifton