Cincinnati Review

What was done was done in our names; we ourselves would never have done what was done to anyone. We wanted to be good, polite, obedient, fun, wanted only not to ever ask What have we done? And yet, in our names, what was done was done.   See more poems from Issue 15.1 by …

for Gary Snyder   Come out the brake into the face of the hill—the full spill of sunglare hazes dust into air arcades & down -drift. A scattering of snap- dragons points up. Seven thousand feet, & cattle low in the field, steam things amidst a morning veil, a cloud liquefying upon their backs. This …

Leonard hadn’t seen his only child since the night ten years ago when he pulled her out of a flaming car. His wife had been dead for a week and he’d been tired for years, but as Leonard pulled Leslie from the fire, he felt strong. He could barely remember that feeling now, any more …

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 …