In 1962, just about halfway between us and the Great War, Barbara Tuchman wrote a book called The Guns of August. Like all the big books about that war, it worries the puzzle of how everything happened, the diplomatic fiasco, then the catastrophic stalemate in the trenches. It argues…well, things ha...

We’re going to get married, married, she said, / going to get married, me and my sister, / and I don’t care what it looks like, she said. / / A sister like mine is harder to find / than a needle lost in the high cactus-desert, / than a hay-colored camel lost in the haystacks. / / We mustn’t let go...

Wrist of mine, what do you have / to sing for yourself? / There where the light-shy lifeblood tests / the surface, like a curious fish. /   / Or shoulder? Hurdy-gurdy crank, / sing in your turn: / Do you remember throwing the stone? / Do you remember shrugging it off? /   / Collar bone, bent like a ...