"House: Some Instructions" by Grace Paley

House: Some Instructions
by Grace Paley

If you have a house
you must think about it all the time   
as you reside in the house so
it must be a home in your mind

you must ask yourself (wherever you are)   
have I closed the front door

and the back door is often forgotten   
not against thieves necessarily

but the wind   oh   if it blows   
either door open   then the heat

the heat you’ve carefully nurtured   
with layers of dry hardwood

and a couple of opposing green   
brought in to slow the fire

as well as the little pilot light   
in the convenient gas backup

all of that care will be mocked because   
you have not kept the house on your mind

but these may actually be among   
the smallest concerns   for instance

the house could be settling   you may   
notice the thin slanting line of light

above the doors   you have to think about that   
luckily you have been paying attention

the house’s dryness can be humidified   
with vaporizers in each room and pots

of water on the woodstove   should you leave   
for the movies after dinner   ask yourself

have I turned down the thermometer
and moved all wood paper away from the stove

the fiery result of excited distraction   
could be too horrible to describe

now we should talk especially to Northerners   
of the freezing of the pipe   this can often

be prevented by pumping water continuously   
through the baseboard heating system

allowing the faucet to drip drip continuously   
day and night   you must think about the drains

separately   in fact you should have established   
their essential contribution to the ordinary

kitchen and toilet life of the house   
digging these drains deep into warm earth

if it hasn’t snowed by mid-December you   
must cover them with hay   sometimes rugs

and blankets have been used   do not be   
troubled by their monetary value

as this is a regionally appreciated emergency   
you may tell your friends to consider

your house as their own   that is   
if they do not wear outdoor shoes

when thumping across the gleam of their poly-
urethaned floors they must bring socks or slippers

to your house as well   you must think   
of your house when you’re in it and

when you’re visiting the superior cabinets   
and closets of others   when you approach

your house in the late afternoon
in any weather   green or white   you will catch

sight first of its new aluminum snow-resistant   
roof and the reflections in the cracked windows

its need in the last twenty-five years for paint   
which has created a lovely design

in russet pink and brown   the colors of un-
intentioned neglect   you must admire the way it does not

(because of someone’s excellent decision
sixty years ago) stand on the high ridge deforming

the green profile of the hill but rests in the modesty   
of late middle age under the brow of the hill with

its back to the dark hemlock forest looking steadily
out for miles toward the cloud refiguring meadows and

mountains of the next state   coming up the road
by foot or auto the house can be addressed personally

House!   in the excitement of work and travel to
other people’s houses with their interesting improvements

we thought of you often and spoke of your coziness
in winter   your courage in wind and fire   your small

airy rooms in humid summer   how you nestle in spring
into the leaves and flowers of the hawthorn and the sage green

leaves of the Russian olive tree   House!   you were not forgotten






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"Some Questions about the Storm" by Hilda Raz

Some Questions about the Storm
by Hilda Raz

What's the bird ratio overhead?
Zero: zero. Maybe it's El Niño?

The storm, was it bad?
Here the worst ever. Every tree hurt.

Do you love trees?
Only the gingko, the fir, the birch.

Yours? Do you name your trees?
Who owns the trees? Who's talking

You presume a dialogue. Me and You.
Yes. Your fingers tap. I'm listening.

Will you answer? Why mention trees?
When the weather turned rain into ice, the leaves failed.

So what? Every year leaves fail. The cycle. Birth to death.
In the night the sound of cannon, and death everywhere.

What did you see?
Next morning, roots against the glass.

Who's talking now and in familiar language? Get real.
What's real is the broken crown. The trunk shattered.

Was that storm worse than others?
Yes and no. The wind's torque twisted open the tree's tibia.

Fool. You're talking about vegetables. Do you love the patio
   tomato? The Christmas cactus?
Yes. And the magnolia on the roof, the felled crabapple, the topless
   spruce.

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"Mid-March" by Lizette Woodworth Reese

Mid-March
by Lizette Woodworth Reese

It is too early for white boughs, too late 
For snows. From out the hedge the wind lets fall 
A few last flakes, ragged and delicate. 
Down the stripped roads the maples start their small, 
Soft, ’wildering fires. Stained are the meadow stalks 
A rich and deepening red. The willow tree 
Is woolly. In deserted garden-walks 
The lean bush crouching hints old royalty, 
Feels some June stir in the sharp air and knows 
Soon ’twill leap up and show the world a rose. 

The days go out with shouting; nights are loud; 
Wild, warring shapes the wood lifts in the cold; 
The moon’s a sword of keen, barbaric gold, 
Plunged to the hilt into a pitch black cloud.






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"her tin skin" by Evie Shockley

her tin skin
by Evie Shockley

i want her tin skin. i want
       her militant barbie breast,
resistant, cupped, no, cocked
       in the V of her elbow. i want
my curves mountainous

and locked. i want her
       arabesque eyes, i want her
tar markings, her curlicues,
       i want her tin skin. she
is a tree, her hair a forest

of strength. i want to be
       adorned with bottles. i
want my brownness
       to cover all but the silver
edges of my tin skin. my

sculptor should have made
       me like her round-bellied
maker hewed her: with chain-
       saw in hand, roughly. cut
away from me everything

but the semblance of tender.
       let nothing but my flexed
foot, toeing childhood, tell
     the night-eyed, who know
how to look, what lies within.


                          —after alison saar’s “compton nocturne”







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"Last Snow" by Heid E. Erdrich

Last Snow
by Heid E. Erdrich

Dumped wet and momentary on a dull ground
that’s been clear but clearly sleeping, for days.
Last snow melts as it falls, piles up slush, runs in first light
making a music in the streets we wish we could keep.
Last snow. That’s what we’ll think for weeks to come.
Close sun sets up a glare that smarts like a good cry.
We could head north and north and never let this season go.
Stubborn beast, the body reads the past in the change of light,
knows the blow of grief in the time of trees’ tight-fisted leaves.
Stubborn calendar of bone. Last snow. Now it must always be so.






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"The Wife Speaks" by Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard

The Wife Speaks
by Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard

Husband, today could you and I behold 
The sun that brought us to our bridal morn 
Rising so splendid in the winter sky 
(We though fair spring returned), when we were wed; 
Could the shades vanish from these fifteen years, 
Which stand like columns guarding the approach 
To that great temple of the double soul 
That is as one – would you turn back, my dear, 
And, for the sake of Love’s mysterious dream, 
As old as Adam and as sweet as Eve, 
Take me, as I took you, and once more go 
Towards that goal which none of us have reached? 
Contesting battles which but prove a loss, 
The victor vanquished by the wounded one; 
Teaching each other sacrifice of self, 
True immolation to the marriage bond; 
Learning the joys of birth, the woe of death, 
Leaving in chaos all the hopes of life—
Heart-broken, yet with courage pressing on 
For fame and fortune, artists needing both? 
Or, would you rather – I will acquiesce— 
Since we must choose what is, and are grown gray, 
Stay in life’s desert, watch our setting sun, 
Calm as those statues in Egyptian sands, 
Hand clasping hand, with patience and with peace, 
Wait for a future which contains no past?







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"San Marcos" by Monica McClure

San Marcos 
by Monica McClure

Since I stopped the flow
Of primordial ciswhite straight men
Whom I heedlessly collect
And from whom the spring feeds
Without reason I have been
Shopping so much more
Than suits a prophet in the forest.

A man said he felt like an awful cad
But an admission as such
Does not irrigate a dry spell
Once it’s surpassed the length
Of a petty offense record
Because the body’s memory is not so
Mutated by language
And there’s very little pleasure in force
When the subject is inertia.

I used to leave as soon as
The mysterious chemistry worked out
Now I am both the one who leaves
And the one who stays
Eco­-novelty is rare and common
And each design reforms
The future and the last.






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