Not mine but take some—not too much,just part. Not the best part—it could be best, though,no wayof knowing, takejust the blue part,the part that includesa cantilever bridge,or maybe the brown part that includesa horse’s halter, I’ll take the partthat is cream and gray, like the mushroomin my path, maybe the roughed-uppart, teeth marks on it,dragged from a dank cellar,the part that has deliquesced,the part just paintedto resemble a mouse, the part vaccinatedby flood, the partthat has rubbedagainst roses.The part with dropsy. The partthat flusters some, that flusters no one.The part that brandishes endorphins,the part that returned to life, sorelyinconveniencing the staff, the part that knowswhereof it speaks, the part that waits longestwith no coffee, no chips, no cigarettes, the partthat locks my gaze, asks my pity,rests close against me,watches with me as two hares begin boxingin the solemnity of dawn.
Hares
Feature Date
- July 2, 2024
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Copyright © 2023 by Angela Ball.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Angela Ball is professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi, where she directs the Center for Writers. She is the author of five previous poetry collections: Kneeling Between Parked Cars, The Museum of the Revolution: 58 Exhibits, Possession, Quartet, and Night Clerk at the Hotel of Both Worlds. She is the recipient of an NEA grant and has twice won the Poetry Prize from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. Her work has been featured in Best American Poetry, on the Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor, and has been frequently anthologized.
Winter 2023
New York, New York
Editor
Emily Stokes
Managing Editor
Kelly Deane McKinney
Poetry Editor
Srikanth Reddy
Since its founding 1953, The Paris Review has been America’s preeminent literary quarterly, dedicated to discovering the best new voices in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The Review’s renowned Writers at Work series of interviews is one of the great landmarks of world literature. Hailed by the New York Times as “the most remarkable interviewing project we possess,” the series received a George Polk Award and has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. With the December 2016 redesign of the Review’s website, the complete digital archive of everything we’ve published since 1953 is available to subscribers. In November 2017, the Review gave voice to nearly sixty-five years of writing and interviews with the launch of its first-ever podcast, featuring a blend of classic stories and poems, vintage interview recordings, and new work and original readings by the best writers of our time.
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