By MAJOR JACKSON
Each day I forget something, but happy
I never forget to wake
to the bright corollas of summer
mornings. I quietly lay in the jury
box of my bed and listen to
the counter-arguments of birds grow
By JACQUELYN POPE
Girl when you get lost
the forest will find you
tame you take you over.
Pocket of breadcrumbs
and birdsong. Pocket of rocks.
Translated by THOMAS EPSTEIN
Wittgenstein’s been in paradise for a while now. He’s probably delighted
Because the surrounding rustle reminds him
That the rustling that surrounds him does not speak of,
Is not an example of that which must be “shown.”
It’s agonizing, because he can’t remember some sentence.
Upsetting too, because reason is in no condition to “grasp”
The border between absorption and the knowledge of absorption. Erfassen.
By SUSAN KINSOLVING
A war surgeon, he saw all losses: life being
the larger part; limbs the lesser. Legs hanging
from trees; on the field, hands disarmed.
Teeth missing; toes afloat in a bucket of blood.
By SUSAN KINSOLVING
Motto: We Provide Warrior Care
The war was over. The only thing to kill was time.
And memory. Looking in a mirror, a G.I. wondered
why. Whether to laugh or cry, he had to face his
future with a new face, one that would be recomposed
with an acrylic eye, a rubber ear, a grafted nostril,
or a plastic nose. Pretend it’s camouflage, the surgeon
said. And thank the Lieutenant Colonel you’re not dead.
1754
She insisted that a gazebo, grotto, and gate be added
to the Estate. Two obelisks were next. And soon, a sham
castle was built on adjoining land. Then she planned
The view excavated any hope of escape. “Ha ha!”
the trench, that sunken fence, seemed to say
with its furrows dug deep enough for despair.
One of several names given to a ghost island that appeared in July 1831
When the buried volcano erupted,
sulfuric smoke leapt from the Sicilian sea,
seeped through locked, felt-lined chests,
blackening the silverware.
With burning eyes
she rose before dusk
the mountains beneath her
and all the hills
filling like window panes with liquid suns
If I forget you Jerusalem, may my right hand wither away. . .
If I do not remember you . . .
—Psalms 137:5-6
To write in Jerusalem
in a garden
with a wind that comes from the mountain
under a canopy of grapevines
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Celebrating 15 Years