Wave Composition

Lydia Davis
The bell of the steamship from Le Havre rings so furiously I have to stop working!

Geoffrey G. O’Brien
Say it was enough
To constitute a vertical hymn
Everybody could almost agree
Hovers over the smallest being…

Joshua Corey
I’ve given her everything and how does she thank me? She won’t even do me the courtesy of existing..

Nicola Gardini (trans. Jonathan Galassi)
“I didn’t know ashes don’t change.”

Vidyan Ravinthiran
At check-in, a little Indian girl
in a velour jumpsuit – let’s call her Pinky
plays Etch-A-Sketch for hours

John Ashbery
“Something no American has yet achieved”

Rae Armantrout
You will buy your life
as a series
of “experiences”

Lisa Steinman
Can you write your way out of this
impasse?

Stephanie Yorke
Don’t be smart. Only uphill one way –
But I went barefoot in both directions.