Preface • AGHA SHAHIDI ALI • I See Chile in My Rearview Mirror • Snow on the Desert • The Country Without a Post Office • Ghazal (Arabic) • Lenox Hill • Rooms Are Never Finished • Ghazal (Even the Rain) • The Purse-Seiner Atlantis • Of Fire • PAMELA ALEXANDER • Flight • Vines • Inventory. Journal. • Sight • Reprise • Mt. Auburn Owl • Northeast Suite • The Comma a Portrait • Foxlight • Person of • Lightfall • Crossing • BRUCE BEASLEY • Witness • Red Reed • What Did You Come to See • from Spiritual Alphabet in Midsummer • Hermetic Diary • Lord Brain • ROBIN BEHN • Origin • Downproofing Lesson • On Giving My Father a Book About Roses • Aubade • Still Life • On Being Asked My Opinion About an Autopsy • Vigil: Dwindle • Ancient New Parents • The Yellow House Writes a Story for the Boy • Below the Cellar of the Yellow House There Is Another Set of Stairs • Like a Horse • The Green Field • LINDA BIERDS • Quickly and Fully • In the Beeyard • White Bears: Tostoy at Astapovo • Phantom Pain • Hunter • It • Desire • Van Leeuwenhoek: 1675 • Altamira: What She Remembered • Vespertilio • Muybridge • Pasteur on the Rue Vauquelin • Thinking of Red • MARIANNE BORUCH • The Hammer Falls, Is Falling • Perennial Garden • Interior with a Violin • The Window • Moss Burning • Omens • Year in Hawaii • The Way the Dying Hear Things • Piano Tuning • Elegy • All Those People • Think of the Words • Simple Machines • MARK DOTY • A Display of Mackerel • Migratory • Fog Argument • Homo Will Not Inherit • The Embrace • Retrievers in Translation • Elizabeth Bishop, Croton • Flit • RITA DOVE • Small Town • The House Slave • Adolescence—II • Parsley • Dusting • Weathering Out • Sunday Greens • Mississippi • Dog Days, Jerusalem • Turning Thirty, I Contemplate Students Bicycling Home • The Other Side of the House • Lint • Exit • Revenant • On Veronica • Ta Ta Cha Cha • La Chapelle. 92nd Division. Ted. • Desert Backyard • NORMAN DUBIE • February: The Boy Breughel • Thomas Hardy • Elizabeth’s War with the Christmas Bear • Coleridge Crossing the Plain of Jars • Parish • New England, Springtime • Of Politics, & Art • The Apocrypha of Jacques Derrida • Buffalo Clouds over the Maestro Hoon • The Pendulum • Of Art & Memory • Dementia • Sky Harbor • BECKIAN FRITZ GOLDBERG • Retro Lullaby • Since I Have Lived • Money • Wren • Fetish • Lilies at Night • God Body • Blossom at the End of the Body • Twentieth Century Children • Twentieth Century Children (2) • Twentieth Century Children (5): Blood-Kissing • Third Body • nights with the Star-Ladle Over the House • He Said Discipline Is the Highest Form of Love • Bedtime Story • The Passing House • LINDA GREGERSON • Norway • Safe • For the Taking • Cranes on the Seashore • Bicameral • Elegant • BOB HICOK • Whither Thou Goest • Once a Green Sky • Small Purchase • Dropping the Euphemism • Goodbye in the Shape of a Knot • Radical Neck • Sudden Movements • The Active Reader • Team Effort • The Busy Days of My Nights • Angels of Mercy • YUSELF KOMUNYAKAA • Water Buffalo • Monsoon Season • Camouflaging in the Chimera • Tunnels • Starlight Scope Myopia • Fragging • “You and I Are Disappearing” • Sappers • We Never Know • Tu Do Street • Prisoners • Thanks • Facing It • A Reed Boat • Buried Light • The Hanoi Market • Anodyne • LARRY LEVIS • Sensationalism • At the Grave of My Guardian Angel: St. Louis Cemetary, New Orleans • Elegy with the Thimbleful of Water in the Cage • Elegy with a Bridle in Its Hand • Elegy with a Chimneysweep Falling Inside It • THOMAS LUX • Solo Native • View from a Porch • The Thirst of Turtles • Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy • There Were Some Summers • the Dark Comes On in Blocks, in Cubes • Ultima Thule • Black Road Over Which Green Trees Grow • Gorgeous Surfaces • Grim Town in a Steep Valley • Plague Victims Catapulted Over Walls Into Besieged City • Grain Burning Far Away • Marine Snow at Mid-Depths and Down • Unlike, for Example, the Sound of a Riptooth Saw • The Language Animal • Can Tie Shoes But Won’t, • To Help the Monkey Cross the River, • From the High Ground, • The Hungry Gap-Time, • CAROL MUSKE-DUKES • Ideal • Applause • Unsent Letter 4: Last Take • Miracles • Blue Kashmir, ‘74 • Ovation • Heroine • Request Radio • Crack the Whip • Jacaranda • CARL PHILLIPS • Somewhere Holy • As from a Quiver of Arrows • Parable • Luck • Words of Love • To Break, to Ride • Minotaur • Custom • The Rest of Love • Late Apollo • Erasure • A Summer • MARY RUEFLE • The Melancholiacs • The Intended • In the Bitter Country • An American Dream • Wasps’ Nest • Peeling the Orange • Rain Effect • Rising Bodies • Out of a Hundred • Public Garden with a Weeping Tree • Evangelical • The March • Perpetually Attempting to Soar • Perfect Reader • The Letter • The Jewel • The Execution Poster • Seven Postcards from Dover • The Feast • Search Party • From Here to Eternity • Kiss of the Sun • DAVID ST. JOHN • Slow Dance • Iris • Six/Nine/Forty-Four • Wedding Preparations in the Country • Dolls • Gin • Hush • Elegy • Winter Fires • An Essay on Liberation • Meditation • In the Sulphur Garden • SUSAN STEWART • The Forest • May 1988 • The Meadow • Apple • Dark the Star • Forms of Forts • Pear • These Trees in Particular • Lost Rules of Usage • Wings • Zero • ARTHUR SZE • The Negative • Axolotl • The String Diamond • Apache Plume • Acanthus • X and O • Earthstar • LEE UPTON • Window Seat at the Paradise • Somewhere So Lush • Contortionist • The Imagination of Flowers • Scroll • Bedtime Story • Jim’s Hairball • The Quality of Mercy • Destruction of Daughters • Happiness • The Scarlet Letter • Beatrix Potter • Civilian Histories • The Table • BRUCE WEIGL • Monkey • Him, on the Bicycle • Painting on a T’ang Dynasty Water Vessel • Tmeple Near Quang Tri, Not on the Map • The Way of Tet • Dialectical Materialism • Why Nothing Changes for Miss Ngo Thi Thanh • Temptation • The Sky of Daduza Township • Three Fish • River Journal • Why I Hate Theory • Home • Self Portrait at Fifty-Three • C. D. WRIGHT • Bent Tones • Tours • Provinces • Elements of Night • Petition for Replenishment • More Blues and the Abstract Truth • Humidity • Personals • Floating Trees • Lack Echo, Dear • Key Episodes from an Earthly Life • Privacy • Flame • from Deepstep Come Shining • until words turn to moss. • in our only time. • FRANZ WRIGHT • Blood • Morning • Alcohol • Illegibility • Loneliness • August Insomnia • Thoughts of a Solitary Farmhouse • Sunday Afternoon • Have You Seen This Child • Circle Drawn In Water • Flight • Walking To Martha’s Vineyard • The Only Animal • Sitting Up Late with My Father, 1977 • Publication Date • Lines Written in the Dark Illegible Next Day • Acknowledgments