Magazine Arts & Culture

Amagansett Cherry

Praise to the cherry on the lawn of the library,the heave and contorted thrust of it, a master,on its own root, negating the word weeping (miles to the nearest tears),requiring instead down-fountaining, or descending from a ferocious intention. Whatever twists the trunksubsumed into pink explosiveness, and then, all summer,the green-black canopy. Prefer it unbent? I […]

By Mark Doty

Winter 2013

Magazine

Golden Retrievals

Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attentionseconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s–ohJoy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residueof any thrillingly dead thing. And you?Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk,thinking of what you never can bring back, or else […]

By Mark Doty

Spring 2009