God never gives us more than we can take,”
the midwife told us, after catching two—
two—heartbeats in your sonogram. She knew
the kids we had at home and hoped to break
the news gently, I guess. These twins would make
four children under four, nearly a zoo.
We nodded, though her saying wasn’t true.
Then, driving home, we stopped to see the lake,
where twenty yards offshore, an ice floe wallowed,
its ebbing heft half sinking in the press
and gleaming crash of waves. Now, it seemed swallowed;
now, it seemed free. Into the gloaming that followed,
it floundered, freighted under such excess
but dressed in jeweled lights and foaming crests.
Second Place — 2026 First Things Poetry Prize
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
A Culture of Parricide
I learned a new word the other day: déploration. It’s the French, directly from the Latin, for “lament.”…
Job and Her
It is said that Job lost everything, but she has lost more. All her possessions—the money, the…
The Chariot Burials
Wheeling through the clotted earth, / Bronze, bone, and leather clumped in clay...
