ALT DANDELIONS We were fabulously lucky. We became dandelions. Before we were even born We kept wishing to be dandelions. Next we found ourselves traveling Out of the great unknown. We rode down in a train Sixteen coaches long, We sat prim and proper In our golden yellow dresses. Others came as black widows, Little monkeys, and red birds, And of course many ants, Snuggled together and looking glum.

ALT The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter Launch BY MARK STRAND It had been a long day at the office and a long ride back to the small apartment where I lived. When I got there I flicked on the light and saw on the table an envelope with my name on it. Where was the clock? Where was the calendar? The handwriting was my father’s, but he had been dead for forty years. As one might, I began to think that maybe, just maybe, he was alive, living a secret life somewhere nearby. How else to explain the envelope? To steady myself, I sat down, opened it, and pulled out the letter. “Dear Son,” was the way it began. “Dear Son” and then nothing.

ALT photograph of index for Thistleton-Dyer's Folk-Lore of Shakespeare

ALT HARM AND BOON IN THE MEETINGS We think the fire eats the wood. We are wrong. The wood reaches out to the flame. The fire licks at what the wood harbors, and the wood gives itself away to that intimacy, the manner in which we and the world meet each new day. Harm and boon in the meetings. As heart meets what is not heart, the way the spirit encounters the flesh and the mouth meets the foreignness in another mouth. We stand looking at the ruin of our garden in the early dark of November, hearing crows go over while the first snow shines coldly everywhere. Grief makes the heart apparent as much as sudden happiness can.

ALT CONTINUOUS CREATION We bring nothing into this world except our gradual ability to create it, out of all that vanishes and all that will outlast us.

ALT Monologue for a second date Mostly, I stare at the ceiling and think about how much I don’t want to die. I have a head. In my head is a circle farm. A woman waves from a burning roof. There’s also falling from sixth-floor balconies, windshields, suicide bombers, stairs, my eyeballs smeared against the windshield, safety pins, shawls caught in car wheels, knots, snowdrops. I have a head. In my head is a stomach full of butterflies. The butterflies are often sharks and they want out. I let them out. They trip on the threshold and smash their teeth. I have a head. Inside is a living room. A suicide bomber’s watching syndicated comedy. My head plays only reruns, cleaner ads, wet floors, skulls cracked open. Nothing after that. All dark, all air chastising its emptiness into the thought of you. I squeeze my eyeballs shut and think of you. I think of you in as many ways as the rains falls.