Sometimes it's more than he can take
He falls in love more everyday
Sometimes it's all he can do to stay awake


Ray Caesar, L'accord D'amour, 2005


Getting Lucky in December
-- by Nicole Steinberg

Snow White-fresh, you wandered into a forest,
pushed your way through the tangled ferny
undergrowth, and breathed in zesty green
enchantment. Freezing your behind off,
you curled up in front of a fireplace
in a charming farm-cum-hotel-cum-spa
with clusters of chambray napkins, vivid pink
candlesticks, ornate little knives and spoons;
French wine bottles like shimmery crack vials.
The winters do get chilly. You shed your sweater
in the rustic boudoir—a beautiful centerpiece
draped, nymph-like, over a paisley pillow.
Tea rose to scent your underthings, hibiscus
in your hair, you blushed and opened like a locket.


The Forms of Love
-- by George Oppen

Parked in the fields
All night
So many years ago,
We saw
A lake beside us
When the moon rose.
I remember

Leaving that ancient car
Together. I remember
Standing in the white grass
Beside it. We groped
Our way together
Downhill in the bright
Incredible light

Beginning to wonder
Whether it could be lake
Or fog
We saw, our heads
Ringing under the stars we walked
To where it would have wet our feet
Had it been water


Words
-- by Barbara Guest

The simple contact with a wooden spoon and the word
recovered itself, began to spread as grass, forced
as it lay sprawling to consider the monument where
patience looked at grief, where warfare ceased
eyes curled outside themes to search the paper
now gleaming and potent, wise and resilient, word
entered its continent eager to find another as
capable as a thorn. The nearest possession would
house them both, they being then two might glide
into this house and presently create a rather larger
mansion filled with spoons and condiments, gracious
as a newly laid table where related objects might gather
to enjoy the interplay of gravity upon facetious hints,
the chocolate dish presuming an endowment, the ladle
of galactic rhythm primed as a relish dish, curved
knives, finger bowls, morsel carriages words might
choose and savor before swallowing so much was the
sumptuousness and substance of a rented house where words
placed dressing gowns as rosemary entered their scent
percipient as elder branches in the night where words
gathered, warped, then straightened, marking new wands.