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Exemplary

Glenn C. Arbery

A vagabond, seduced by impish godsTo jaywalk the downtown interstate, is dead.Addled with booze, he managed against the oddsTo hit rush hour, lifting, one woman said, That slow-down-buddy, wait-a-minute handBums use...

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...

Saint Gobnait of the Honeybees

Marly Youmans

She’d have naught of silvery turnings like fish,The Celtic knot of wedded, bedded love.She stole away to the Arans, met a man Not man but fearsome messenger of wishAnd...

Stained Glass

Valerie Wohlfeld

My father holds a panel of glassbetween us: we are both bathed blue.Wordlessly, we let the light passthrough. Where blade scores, glass breaks true. Cut pieces are placed side...

My Mother’s Teeth

Angela Alaimo O'Donnell

My mother’s teeth were kept in a bottlemarked with the sign of the cross. I usedto shake it till they’d rattle,interest and childish horror fused.They weren’t her teeth. They...

Apophatic

Not with the myth and phosphorus of metaphor. Notwith lines of force looped in true-love knots.Not by dumping the urn and reading the ashes. Notthrough sonic wantonness, but not...

Spontaneous Loss

Those early weeks, you could have been anyone,   Too young for fingerprints, much less a name,And years away from our first catch-and-toss—   A little flesh and blood, no brain,...

In the Activities Room

Jane Greer

No one will say it, but we knowtoday’s fresh-flamed hibiscus flowerreveals in one brief, glorious showour birth, our life, our final hour. Sacrament and synecdochelive in a pot near...

Parting Gifts

Benjamin Myers

Thanks for playing. Here’s your consolation prize:a mountain capped with fog, the sun behind throwing light circumspectly on a lake, the waya painter lights a lovely face from out...

Not a Lament but an Ode to the Makers

Wendy Videlock

Someone somewhere long ago      with a pair of hands, a bit of earthand a thirsty soul, crafteda beautiful bowl. Just as someonenot so long ago made a...

Gather Ye

Ryan Wilson

Second Place — 2024 First Things Poetry Prize

At the Graveside

Eric Hutchinson

Based on Philip Melanchthon’s epitaph for his son, Georg

Two Owls

Josiah Cox

First Place — 2024 First Things Poetry Prize

Incline Your Ear

Sarah Rossiter

Imagine the shell you findon the beach, a large conch,half-buried, glistening inmorning light, waiting to belifted, rinsed, held cupped to your ear: This is your body,listen and hear; blood...

Our Daughter Beside the Sea: Blue Hill, Maine

Ben Myers

The seaside rock she sits on shines a blaze   of purple shell and matte-glazed films of moss.She perches there, bent knees to chest, to gaze   the gray and frosty...