no name, no grave, no homethe nameless sung by the nameless and add to that no soundsilent, but loud the sky opens awhile waves at the depths of deep silence swelling already rise up to yourself the idea is like a boat sliding byread pearls, beginnin

Editor Emily Nemens Managing Editor Hasan Altaf Online Editor Nadja Spiegelman Assistant Online Editor Brian Ransom Assistant Editor Lauren Kane Poetry Editor Vijay Seshadri Art Editor Charlotte Strick Southern Editor John Jeremiah Sullivan London Ed

For years I could barely write a page. I thought I was becoming a virtuoso of smallness while the grief, which is wordless, occupied an ever-greater volume. My friend lived in the estates on the bad side of town. Let’s go to the forest, she said when

I never kept sheep,But it’s as if I had.My soul is like a shepherd,It knows the wind and the sunAnd walks hand in hand with the Seasons,Following and looking.All the peace of peopleless NatureComes to sit by my side.But I feel as sad as a sunset isTo

Crater of the beginning, mud of death, endless wreckage, is this your world, the serpent you forged over seven long nights? You were freshness in a well of cloistered water and the wondrous balance of sky over earth. I reject those hands, your fundam

I moved to Los Angeles to sing. When was this? August? June? I was twenty-nine, and those were shapeless months, when the days blended together and I refused to pull them apart. My landlord was unusually close to her adult son. His name was Jeffrey,

A day after we made our suicide pact, the bank sent a yellow letter saying we’d lose our house. That night, instead of just killing ourselves, Monique and I set the place on fire. It was easy to start. A mountain of rags soaked in turpentine. Up it w

you’re home. eating lentils. talking to yourloved one. you’re abroad. eating lentils. talking toyour loved one. you’re not yourself. you’ve been stolen.you’re talking to your lentils. you’re not a knife, not cotton.talking to your loved one. you forg

The dry, black branches of winter seen in flight run singing. Come here to drink translucent drops on fresh leaves. Come over here, and try to light that wick. If you descend from the summit, humming, perhaps I can see you, perhaps at the river’s cur

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (1821–1867) was a French poet and essayist. His collection of prose poems Le spleen de Paris—also titled Petits poèmes en prose—was published in 1869. JAMEL BRINKLEY is the author of A Lucky Man: Stories. SUSAN MARGARET BROWN is a

Cover: courtesy of Francesca Colussi. Pages 40–69, courtesy of Robert Hass; page 70, © 1998 by Fred Viebahn; page 73, © 1996 by Jock McDonald; page 77, © 2007 by Miriam Berkley; pages 106–23, courtesy of Francesca Colussi; pages 124, 139, courtesy of

O my seventh year, the year I turned sevenO wondrous moment of departureAfter you everything that happened happened in a mass of craziness andinsanity After you the window that had been such a vivid and bright connectionbetween the bird and usbetween

The situation in itself is not unique. There was a man who hated his job and wanted a new one. There was a man who was sick of his boring job and wanted an exciting job instead. This man was depressed, but he saw a way out. He thought this way out wa

today i mourn my coat.my old potato.my yellow mother.my horse with buttons.my rind.today she split her skinlike a snake,refusing to excuse my backfor being bigfor being oldfor reaching toward othercuffs and sleeves.she cracked like a whip andfell apa

After my friend and I left the tobacco shop, he carefully sorted his loose change; slipped some small gold coins in his left jacket pocket; into the right went the silver pieces; in his left pants pocket, a handful of centimes; and in the right, a si

The application to Waverley Glen Academy required that I spend a day sitting in on freshman classes and mixing with the student body to see how well I’d fit in. I was twelve. Picture the gleaming wooden corridors, the Persian rugs, the monogrammed si

Should the gusts of wind come this way then tell them There’s nothing here that they could take away with them There’s nothing here that someone could look at and think:If only this were ours, too There’s no traveler here, no destination, There’s no

My sister threw open the door so that it banged against the little console table she kept by the entrance. “Silas,” she said breathlessly, before even removing her coat, “I have to tell you something.” Which was enough to make me feel trapped, as tho

Yes I helped decree it.In the white-walledroom of before withstrangers + veils.Don’t think I don’t thinkabout it daily. Up herefumigating my orielaccording to the NewerOrdering. I feel exactlyhow we got here. Wethought. Then we didas we thought. Then

Cover: © Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, courtesy of Tiwani Contemporary. Pages 34–62, courtesy of Rachel Cusk; pages 104–21, © Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, courtesy of Tiwani Contemporary; pages 144, 153, 161, courtesy of Nathaniel Mackey; page 156, photo by

Over, the kite’s flight; and of a suddenis the realization of the morning overcomeby the echo of dark nights, silent witnessto the colorlessness crouching down before us.Stealing time is what’s been happening all the time.Is it because you’ve heard o

Either they just dieor they get sick and die of the sicknessor they get sick, recover, then die of something else,or they get sick, appear to recover,then die of the same thing,the sickness coming backto take another bite out of youin the forest of y

There was a man, let’s call him Henry VIII. There was his wife, let’s call her Anne B. Let’s give them a castle and make it nice. Let’s give her many boy babies but make them dead. Let’s give him a fussy way of being. Let’s make her smart and sneaky,

Editor Emily Nemens Managing Editor Hasan Altaf Online Editor Nadja Spiegelman Assistant Online Editor Brian Ransom Assistant Editor Lauren Kane Poetry Editor Vijay Seshadri Art Editor Charlotte Strick Southern Editor John Jeremiah Sullivan London Ed

Not frequent, the monitors of doomed pastoraladmit these native moths their autumn rising after a sleepy eviscerated summer, stubblesuddenly alive with beakiness, and then and then … emergence from pupae and the flutter the matingand egg-laying that