Poetic Medicine

By Rachel Hadas When my son was a few weeks old, replicas of his yawning face appeared suddenly on drowsy passersby: middle-aged man’s...

By Maya Angelou You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust,...

By Eve Lyons I remember waiting.  I remember calling the Target in Little Rock to reserve a car seat. I remember taking on the phone wit...

By Roald Dahl The crocodile, with cunning smile, sat in the dentist's chair. He said, "Right here and everywhere my teeth requir...

By Rumi Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, ...

By Noelle Kocot Saturn seems habitual, The way it rages in the sky When we’re not looking. On this note, the trees still sing To me, a...

By Simon Armitage I write in praise of air. I was six or five
 when a conjurer opened my knotted fist
 and I held in my palm the whole o...

By Rafael Campo By menopause, it's not just estrogen my mother lacks. She's lost her eldest son-- that's me, the one who...

By Kowsar Asad Warsame   Ssshssh…! Listen Do you hear that? That is the voice of a girl child A child who is a future teacher ...

By Sherman Alexie 1. In December, snow covered the court. We wrapped our hands in old socks, soaked the white snow with kerosene, lit...

By Eve Lyons I’m wandering the tofu and fake meat section when the announcement comes: “Will Eve Lyons please come to the information de...

By Adrienne Rich First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, and checked the edge of the knife-blade, I put on the bod...

By Kay Ryan   The wreck    is a fact.    The worst    has happened.    The salvage t...

By Kristal Leebrick  I remember our breath in the icy air and how the northern lights gathered in a haze at the horizon, spread up...

By Norma Johnson I Didn’t Tell You I didn’t tell you about my real life The one that haunts me most days It comes in moments at a ti...

By Sharon Olds On the then-below-zero day, it was on, near the patients' chair, the old heater kept b...

By Jennifer Michael Hecht When they die we change our minds about them. While they live we see the plenty hard they’re trying, to be a ...

By Mark Doty Downtown anywhere and between the roil of bathhouse steam—up there the linens of joy and shame must be laundered again and ...

By Amanda Palmer you don’t know how it felt to be in the womb but it must have been at least a little warmer than this. you don’t know ...

By Martin Rosner I have mislaid my touchstones. They always glowed to show The clearly destined path I had to walk. Now I stumble wea...