I am talking my way back to the poem’s turn
and where it might lie outside my skirted body,
a corded place where bluish sky paints my attention,
and empties itself into a golden silence—
without talk or sound. Phrases now feel
perversely sentient and yet devilishly
wrong. Every night I talk with the hope
that speech itself will burn me
its one true alphabet.

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On this late-summer weekend, read stories on what having a crush can teach you about yourself, the rise and fall of computer-science degrees, and how, exactly, America got so mean.
There Are Two Types of Dishwasher People
And only one of them really knows how to load it.

The U.S. Open is one of the few occasions a year when tennis really gets its due in America. More than 1 million people—including Simone Biles, Aaron Judge, and other top athletes—shelled out for tickets last year, feverish heat be damned. Ticket sales this year are up by 8 percent. The sold-out after-party, featuring the band Odesza, will transform New York’s Louis Armstrong Stadium from tennis court to dance club.

The moment my oldest child was born, I reached for an anthology of Romantic poetry that I have owned for decades and began reading. “Sweet joy befall thee,” I said to my baby, through tears, bestowing a blessing with the words of William Blake.
The benediction was unplanned.

If Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, wins this fall’s election, he will occupy the most powerful executive position of any American socialist. At the moment, the closest contenders are two mayors in California and a county executive in Maryland. No wonder, then, that American socialists have begun to dream big.