How tender, the way she cups her hand to keep warm rinse water away from my eyes … —Matthew Thorburn

No one wants to look at a dead terrorist. No one wants to hear a terrorist’s sobs. —Gray Davidson Carroll

They are a measure of humility, a scoop, a shovel, a gutter, a necessary plumbing, the celebrant of hierarchy and the social order … —Janice N. Harrington

By spoon. By cap cup. Mixed with milk. Mixed with ice cream. —Lauren Tess www.rattle.com/she-wont-tak...

He still dreams of the ladder, the wall, the house, the blooming black flower he’d become when the hammer hit … —Dick Westheimer

We were neighbors with a sex worker, and she was glad to cook for us … —Gwendolyn Soper

I fold the shirt lengthwise, from right shoulder to hip: the margin narrows like the doctor’s prognosis. —Julie Goldman

I in sin sing —Ravi Shankar

“I feel the same way,” said Jenna. “It’s like, when I saw his blood spurt out, I thought, that could be my blood, couldn’t it? Or yours, or anyone’s ...” —Seth Simons

He never dropped the curtain of the clipboard. You’ll laugh at this, but I felt betrayed. —Daniel Seifert

we rise. balms in our hands are beautiful duets. every measure, a mood. —Sandra Rivers-Gill

All this to say, when you go I hope the earth and stone withstand the currency I’ll scatter. —Daniel Seifert

A lie is kindling. Belief is the paper … —Shuly Xóchitl Cawood #ThisWeekLastYear

With the hand-mirror and wall mirror, I see where to rub the ointment on my father’s tombstone. —Elizabeth Wurz

Tonight's episode of the Rattlecast is an awards gala celebrating this year's Rattle Poetry Prize winner and the 10 finalists. For the first time, you won't have to wait until the winter to hear the winning poems. Join us live at 8pm ET!

people will walk around crying, just sobbing, loudly, endlessly, on the city streets … —Jessy Randall

News comes of more killing in America, the usual recriminations filling the fountains of blame. —David Mason

But sometimes in the hallway of the school we’d see the witch’s daughter without her mother, looking like any other kid, looking almost like us in her brilliant disguise … —Joan Murray

What I want to describe, what I want to remember, is how we crawled toward each other … —Jessy Randall

Like the time Dan in seventh grade said I love you then No, never mind. —Lexi Pelle

I turned the dial and the radio played Major Tom: “And the stars look very different today …” —Brian O’Sullivan

Normally, I’d be frightened of you … —Patricia Ndombe

Did death come for them the way it came for her: slow, and then sudden? —JaLeah Hedrick @leahstayshome.bsky.social

we kill our life by living it —Tony Barnstone

but a call light will go off and life goes on. —Sarah Leman

1. the apartment came with a table attached to the wall. 2. the center point of my mother’s body. 3. i sit in bed, clean laundry lotused around me. —Franny Choi

A woman married a skull. He had a beautiful singing voice but had never cleaned a toilet in his life. —Nick Lantz

Here’s what he does to reclaim the ravine … —Lynne Knight

Tonight's guest on the Rattlecast is @richardsiken.bsky.social, author of Crush and War of the Foxes. His new book, I Know Some Things, wrestles with truth, family history, and the traumatic stroke he experienced in 2019. Join us live at 8pm ET!

but they were also thinking about their friend who wasn’t there yet the one who goes to the school where it happened was he coming tonight? —Jennifer Manthey

In French, it simply means a summary, which limits what it can and can’t convey despite my padding and hyperbole. —Rob Ingraham

Hold the red dye in your mouth Place your hand upon the stone Blow … —Lewis Buzbee

A field never mourns what weather carries off. —Chrissy Stegman

queasy to picture a choir of men in hymnic sway cleaving the head from the beast’s bowed neck … —Francisco Castro Videla

So human nature yanks out from under us the gantry of human achievement. —Malcolm Alexander

Your patience was deep but it had a bottom. Your grave was deep but it had a bottom. Your worries were not endless after all. —Mather Schneider

How many things love us quietly? How many never get seen until a better eye looks? —Sushanta Basumatary

I reads a poem of cheeses and I thoughts, evocative—it teases bubbling pots of cheesy dreamses. —Lisa J. Roberts

Like a clock that never stops, my love works to keep you from becoming negative space, a blur of bronze on blue. —Judy Kaber

Were these the bellies of the swine into which Jesus cast the demons? —John Poch

No one listens. Everybody talks. —Susan McLean www.rattle.com/echo-chamber...

but I can tell you about a burger. —J.B. Penname

Again, it will drench them. Again, they’ll be surprised. —Samantha Strong Murphey

I’d say it like a sutra: everyone. —Mike White

It was my grandfather, not Christ, that wanted to abandon us with the food in our hands. —Chiwenite Onyekwelu

I walk away from the screen of blue words, trying to imagine a world before altar bells … —Martin Vest

When he points to the vichyssoise and chortles, what the heck is that? I don’t tell him about the time I went to Paris on a dare … —Yoda Olinyk

Someone at the party says it’s threatening to storm, and I say it’s offering to storm. I say it’s volunteering to storm … —JeFF Stumpo

What’s the proper response to the loss of your pickle? —Howard Nelson

You are not wrong, Jon Ossoff, but I am so tired of men in tweed telling me how to be better. —Christy Prahl