(6) Suzanne Cleary: Acting

(12) Mary Cornish: Numbers

(14) Miller Williams: Listen

(19) Rebecca Wee: Hoop Snake

(20) Charles Simic: Bestiary For The Fingers Of My Right Hand

(22) Tom Wayman: Did I Miss Anything

(25) Richard Jones: White Towels
        I have been studying the difference
        between solitude and loneliness.
        telling the story of my life
        to the clean white towels taken warm from the dryer.
        I carry them through the house
        as though they were my children
        asleep in my arms.

(26) Kenneth Koch: To You
        I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut
        That will solve a murder case unsolved for years
        Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window
        Through which he saw her head, connecting with
        Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red
        Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years;
        For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not
        Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a
        Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails
        In the wind, when you're near, a wind that blows from
        The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us;
        I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields
        Always, to be near you, even in my heart
        When I'm awake, which swims, and also I believe that you
        Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to
        The place where I again think of you, a new
        Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow
        Of a ship which sails
        From Hartford to Miami, and I love you
        Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun
        Receives me in the questions which you always pose.

(31) Li-Young Lee: Little Father

(35) William Matthews: A Poetry Reading at West Point

(39) Yves Bonnefoy: Passer-by, these are words...

(47) Charles Simic: The Partial Explanation

(49) C. S. Lewis: The Late Passenger (Punch, 1947)

(51) Carol Snow: Tour

(53) Don Paterson: Poetry

(56) Richard Jones: The Bell
        In the tower the bell
        is alone, like a man
        in his room,
        thinking and thinking.

        The bell is made of iron.
        It takes the weight
        of a man
        to make the bell move.

        Far below, the bell feels
        hands on a rope.
        It considers this.
        It turns its head.

        Miles away,
        a man in his room
        hears the clear sound,
        and lifts his head to listen.

(61) Aaron Fogel: The Printer's Error

(62) Nick Flynn: Cartoon Physics, part 1

(71) Lisel Mueller: Love Like Salt

(76) Lisa Jarnot: Ye White Antarctic Birds (57th street)

(77) Galway Kinnell: St. Francis and the Sow

(88) Jane Kenyon: Otherwise

(94) Jane Yolen: Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale (3rd stanza)
        I am thinking of a fairy tale
        that is not yet written,
        for a teller not yet born,
        for a listener not yet conceived,
        for a world not yet won,
        where everything round is good:
        the sun, wheels, cookies, and the princess.

(95) Frances Mayes: Sister Cat

(96) David Ignatow: The Bagel

(99) Luisa Villani: Watching the Mayan Women

(101) Mary Jo Salter: Video Blues

(104) Robert Bly: Gratitude to Old Teachers

(105) David Lehman: June 11

(106) David Clewell: Vegetarian Physics

(109) J. Allyn Rosser: Message: Bottle #32 (1st two of 7 stanzas)
        Ignore that last one I sent you.
        I'd really rather you didn't
        try to find me.

        Everything human is perfect here, round,
        worn smooth. These green bottles
        and the bones beside them.

(111) Charles Bukowski: No. 6

(118) Kate Knapp Johnson: The Meadow

(119) Christina Pugh: Rotary

(122) Sharon Bryan: Beyond Recall

(123) Dana Gioia: Alley Cat Love Song

(130) Philip Levine: The Poem of Chalk

(133) Stephen Dobyns: Loud Music

(134) Henry Taylor: Elevator Music

(139) Sharon Olds: The Quest (from The Gold Cell)
        The day my girl is lost for an hour,
        the day I think she is gone forever and then I find her,

(141) Li-Young Lee: Words For Worry

(145) Edward Hirsch: Fast Break

(148) David Ray: Doing Without

(150) Ron Padgett: Ladies and Gentlemen in Outer Space

(151) Mac Hammond: Thanksgiving

(161) Kaylin Haught: God Says Yes To Me

(165) Robley Wilson: I Wish In The City Of Your Heart

(179) Gerald Stern: 96 Vandam

(180) Heather McHugh: What He Thought