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Epistle to a Former Friend

A. M. Juster

When I say a prayerfor the wicked I despairand think, of course, of youand how your late-night rantsmake reservoirs of jaundice riseas veins keep tightening and helplessnessintensifies. Forgiveness that I...

Sonnet 118

A. M. Juster

I leave my sixteenth year of sighsand head into my final onealthough it seems I’ve just begunexploring ways to agonize. The bitter’s sweet, my losses wise,and life a weight....

To Imagine Excellence

A. M. Juster

Let Us Watch Richard Wilbur:A Biographical Studyby robert bagg and mary bagguniversity of massachusetts, 392 pages, $32.95 Richard Wilbur died peacefully, surrounded by family, on October 14. Though he had...

Scops and Skalds

A. M. Juster

Becoming a Poet in Anglo-Saxon England
 by emily thornbury
 cambridge, 338 pages, $99 My years of mandatory Latin began when I was eleven. Almost immediately I hated the language...

Elegy for a Horseshoe Crab

A. M. Juster

Here on the sand lies crusty limulus, the stalwart crab of the marine Old Right. Untouched by any trendy stimulus, our kind assesses change in clear, cold light before once...

The Devil in the Details

A. M. Juster

Slow, old python of my Everglades,he astutely picks where he invades:data dumps; the depths of lower courts;knotted weeds in annual reports. Rounded figures fail to square; a willscrews the...

Japanese Maple in January

A. M. Juster

All spring she brushed aside my arguments that it was cheaper and would make more sense to fill the yard with hardy Yankee stock. She bought her maple, junked...

Three Riddles by Saint Aldhelm

A. M. Juster

63 When bloody flooding killed the human race And brand-new oceans put man in his place, Except for those who carried mankind’s seed, I, first of creatures, snubbed what...

Farewell, Mr. Wizard

A. M. Juster

I conjure NBC in black-and-white. You drop dry ice in water; fog is rising. You sell us Celsius and Fahrenheit. I lose you in a cloud of advertising” Winston,...

Rejection Note for Paradise Regained

A. M. Juster

Loved that first book—it’s got no equal—  but, Johnny, we don’t love your sequel. If you would only take a chance on self-help or a gay romance, we’d let...

No Man’s Island

A. M. Juster

for JFK Jr. A strip of violet quivers in the haze— a near-mirage above the furrowed grays and blues of Vineyard Sound, an afterthought of windworn scrub the military...

An Execration for an Unfaithful Husband

A. M. Juster

O may the girlfriend of your nightmares stalk you on the Internet, and “need to talk,” and may no Xanax lessen your despair as you obsess about what she...

Disclaimer

A. M. Juster

Despite what’s promised when you marry, actual results may vary.

Candid Headstone

A. M. Juster

Here lies what’s left of Michael Juster, A failure filled with bile and bluster. Regard the scuttlebutt as true. Feel free to dance; most others do.

Disfigure of Speech

A. M. Juster

I hear the yowling of the cats of war . . . Oh no . . . wrong metaphor!