We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
The lilies stained my dress because I was proud
To hold them to my breast. How admired
I appeared in the subway car, nothing left
Private. I believed in little before I lost my faith.
Newlyweds frolic in a bed downstairs,
The house’s shudder moves through mine.
Novena candle, effulgent TV.
Neon clock in the mortician’s window
Whose radiant face was meant for me.
The neighborhood has nodded off,
Trains course under the streets—
I can’t stop this. Which is how
I came to believe. For dear life.
I could never have such power.
Sally Dawidoff is a 2005 National Endowment for the Arts fellow.
Contributions from readers enable us to provide a public space, free and open, for the discussion of ideas. Join this effort – become a supporting reader today.
Vital reading on politics, literature, and more in your inbox. Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter, Monthly Roundup, and event notifications.
Our well-being depends on a better understanding of how the logic of labor has twisted our relationship with pleasure.
Fiction
“I was my father’s son. My father was Nai Nai’s least favorite.” A Taiwanese American man, driven from home by a secret, reevaluates his childhood memories of his grandmother.
MacArthur Genius Kelly Lytle Hernández makes the case for why U.S. history only makes sense when told as a binational story.
A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975. Registered 501(c)(3) organization. Learn more about our mission
