Had you gone to the grocery,
you wouldn’t have heard it—

Had you gone to the grocery,
you wouldn’t have heard it—
By Lynn Glicklich Cohen A doctor’s waiting room—where everyone who came in after you is called first—is a fine place to inspect the quality of your mind. There you may…
I know when I say lemon,
my mouth waters. Anchovy,
my nose crinkles. Let me awaken
your taste buds:
oregano, hot peppers, pepperoni.
When the sea meets the bay, water bursts
like a bomb over docks, breaks the ropes
of fishing boats, knocks them into each other,
smashes their small hulls, rushes up the block
By Mark Watney Behold! How gladly22 it is how goodly23 it iswhen two brothers build togetheran earth-dwelling24 a hobbit-hole It is like Mugwort the master-weed25which heals the head and flows…
I scan the room for a big brother’s hoodied slouch
or the hard-faced stare of an older sister
with pouting fuchsia lips and bleached-taffy hair.
But it’s just us.
How small hairs pricked at the nape of my neck
when the phone rang. How at the cyanamide plant
the earth roared as the first blast flung
raw flesh, rag, and bone—
He speaks in Italian—keen, wheeling words
she tenders in echo. Each syllable dwindles
October’s losses, mesmerizes as her English cannot,
and she grins when he casts the remembered spell,
chants, plucks a quarter from behind her ear
The crust, quiet and tender, but I finally hear the breaking this
creates. So much of what happens
is routine. The raven crackles and shrieks because
it imagines a hole in the nest.