Let Me Please Look Into My Window
by Gerald Stern
Let me please look into my window on 103rd Street one more time—
without crying, without tearing the satin, without touching
the white face, without straightening the tie or crumpling the flower.
Let me walk up Broadway past Zak's, past the Melody Fruit Store,
past Stein's Eyes, past the New Moon Inn, past the Olympia.
Let me leave quietly by Gate 29
and fall asleep as we pull away from the ramp
into the tunnel.
Let me wake up happy, let me know where I am, let me lie still,
as we turn left, as we cross the water, as we leave the light.
The League of Minor Characters
by Kathleen Flenniken
The main character sits on his childhood bed
naming everything that's gone—ex-job, ex-wife,
ex-best friend--and finally apprehends
the breakdown we've felt coming since chapter five.
When his doctor calls with test results, most of us
decide to remain minor characters
like the quixotic neighbor growing
bonsai sequoias, or the waitress with thick
glasses and a passion for chess,
because the main character, in the thrall
of a relentless plot, can't help hurtling toward
the crumbling cliff edge. And who needs that?
Some inherit genes from generations
of minor players, some must learn to guard
those sunny Sundays with the paper
full of heroes in distant gunfire. And some of us
who've gotten smug over the years turn another page,
turn on the football game, until one day
the doorbell rings. We close our books,
adjust our eyes, and the protagonist
sweeps in insisting himself into our lives
with his entourage of lust and language,
sorrow, brio. Hero, anti-hero, it hardly matters
with the lights this bright. The music crests
and it's time to speak.
Kindness to Animals
by Anonymous
Little children, never give
Pain to things that feel and live:
Let the gentle robin come
For the crumbs you save at home,—
As his meat you throw along
He'll repay you with a song;
Never hurt the timid hare
Peeping from her green grass lair,
Let her come and sport and play
On the lawn at close of day;
The little lark goes soaring high.
To the bright windows of the sky,
Singing as if 'twere always spring,
And fluttering on an untired wing,—
Oh! let him sing his happy song,
Nor do these gentle creatures wrong.
