Cincinnati Review

My beast made of gold is my vocation; it walks with me and makes a peaceable sound. It has no wings and it has no clay. I never touch it, if I can help it—though sometimes, knocked roughly, I brush it by accident. That is when the pain comes and the great poems cover their …

By the time we’d built the hand- rail, the hand had vanished— but still there was a sky to rail at.     See more poems from Andrea Cohen by purchasing Issue 14.2 in our online store. Digital copies only $5.

A wailing begins at the registration window, a high-pitched adult voice, male, the elemental timbre an unmistakable keening of fear and pain. Even before I see him, I think of the purity of a baby’s cry and, also, that it is unfair to compare a man to a baby. I think too how rare it …

I accept the position in spring. When they call, they tell me I was the unanimous vote. It was you or no one, the department chair says. And no one didn’t want the position, she adds, and laughs. Okay, I say, then sign the papers, graduate with my doctorate, move across the country. Okay, I …