al-Baghdadi picks his teeth with an archaic toothbrush. 
Salvadora persica from Babylon, 
a twig twisted green from the mustard tree.

 On the western ghats of the city,
Children are bathing.
Husbands are burning their wives;

If I had known I'd reduce you to this,
I would've stopped myself along the way
to see the shape your shoulders took—

Outside my window, branches are breaking off the trees. The sound of glass shattering
fills my afternoons. I tell myself, this is natural for March: the frozen rain coating each limb.
The weight, the breaking begins when the sky turns plum—we are at tea (the children try

I guess like losing anything, I thought
it was coming back at first. And then days
crowded round with nowhere else to go—

With an ornate rug draped behind her, Eliza Griswold reads an extremely prescient poem by Mark Strand.

Reading these long and sluggish lines, I can see Wallace Stevens at work in his quiet office, looking out of the window at a cold, sunny winter day much like today. He sees smoke leaving the neighbor’s chimney. Someone has made a fire. But I find t…