Reading Rita Doveโ€™s Boccaccio: The Plague Years

Each day, each night, upon the southern island that reaches out to the Gulf of Mexico, the clapboard beach houses raise their tunes of flying fish, slapping hard upon the waterโ€™s edge. I was two, perhaps, younger. My memory slips into a time of a golden astonishment, white sand that stings as a round, translucent…

Reading Rita Dove at Sunrise

Pacing, as a hummingbird spins her wings and tiny frame, not frantic, but gracefully as Paavo Oso and his art, staring impassive to his muse, what shall ruminating speak this time?                                                             Seven A.M. The canvas still clean. Once upon a timeโ€ฆ he felt the lascivious rage within his rags, threads reaching to the sky…