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Her complex portraits reveal an alchemy of desire, pain, power, and weakness.

On the mountain, it’s not necessary to say anything—
to decide what you and I might become.

Here the sun sets for only a moment,
thick cloud of fire and ash

all the oranges and reds we haven’t invented yet—
and the sound of the wind too loud

for human ears to hear.

But holy the smoke, the quaking, the desire
to ascend—to hear the voice that speaks only

in silence.

You can’t paint this, though you will try—
the canvas and birds—the words that are meant to hint,

Sarah Blau’s protagonists are childless by choice. Herein lies the danger.

Still, I wish Lin-Manuel Miranda had asked more of us.

I hold your silence like a small round stone, it goes with me wherever I go.

Waking, I wear it: its bounce on my breast a second pulse, call and response
of heart aching, rhythm breaking, the body’s drum beaten from both sides.

Or sometimes I clench its stone-cold sphere in the pit of my palm where it
steals my warmth. Little Slate Sun, Black-Hole-Born-in-Fire, feed on me.

Eric Freeze and his family moved to Nice—in order to spend less and live better.

It was midnight when we saw them,
such unexpected bright abundance,
we thought at first we must be dreaming,
the night itself lit from within as if
the Milky Way had fallen, a multitude
of dancing stars illuminating rain-soaked
grass, the host of heaven come to earth,
beckoning, or so it seemed; and I remember
how it felt to rise, submerge, to enter in
that sea of luscious liquid dark, our arms
outstretched as if to swim winged waves
of incandescent light, becoming one with

Matt and Adam talk about family, cars, and the brilliant idiocy of Fast Five

It’s early Friday.
Drivers rush east and west along route 470
while some of us are caught
at screens of activity in our motel lobby.

We carry out our rituals of beginning day,        
while You, in the thick of massive inattention,
continue turning earth
within the sun’s sphere.        

You do this in spite of lack of interest
and soundlessly,
knowing, just as we do from the chatty broadcasts,
that clouds are set for rain today.

Nearly all animals produce their own vitamin C, but we can’t.
We undertake every part of the process except, inexplicably,
the last step, the production of a single enzyme. —Bill Bryson

          After however
many steps to manufacture
         our own vitamin

          C, we
stop. I could imagine
         in that some