‘On tenterhooks / you think how string constricts, how / it connects, how you followed it back / to Rawtenstall.’
This is the closest you can get to flight:
tugging the heartstrings of a kite
whose loops and dives remind you
of your son’s handwriting, his quest
for heights. How long is the piece of string
that tethers us to this moment, you’d think.
Kissing the shuttle your mother would
suck the thread thro…
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‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
