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In those days when I was the academy’s darling 
I borrowed phrases and made no claims, 
digressed gracefully from every absent thesis 

I didn’t recognize you when I saw you because you looked exactly the same as you did in 2017 and it was absurd that you wouldn’t have changed at all. I assumed you were someone from outside of my life until your forehead turned red like it...

Between Los Angeles and Oakland, 
there was snow on the grass-covered mountains,
which made a strange pattern, like brushstrokes
on paper.

In the end 
the world is empty 
enough to move in 
—to learn how best to hold a lantern 
drunk in the forestdark— 
 

With her essay “Social Distortions,” Laura Kolbe wraps up a brief but impressive run as a columnist for this magazine: six installments that brought more than three dozen works—from film to textiles to sculpture—to bear on essays that are...

Tired of silence, tired of rock, tired of orchestration,
let me tune us in this evening to FM 91.1, The Point: 
“All y’all’s favorite home for the candid sounds 
of people sleeping.” 

The scene was picturesque: In the summer of 2021, the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic, I found myself on the edge of a verdant cliff, where the forest hugged the sea. Here, in the Calanques, the clouds gliding across the sky appeared...