Five American Masterpieces

“When love and skill work together,” wrote the late-nineteenth-century writer and critic John Ruskin, “expect a masterpiece.” Here we offer five masterpieces, each born of passion and experience.

Matthew Dickman
Slow Dance
Your hands along her spine. Her hips unfolding like a cotton napkin.
W. S. Merwin
Accompaniment
I do not see there and have never seen.
Joyce Carol Oates
Between Us There’s a Secret
She knew what boys can do to girls. She had no clear knowledge, yet she knew.
James Salter
Palm Court
She did something few girls had ever done with him. She laughed.
Tobias Wolff
Übermensch
She dropped her cigarette and ground it out, leg flashing forward from the pleats of her skirt.

Five American Masterpieces

Your hands along her spine. Her hips unfolding like a cotton napkin.

I do not see there and have never seen.

She knew what boys can do to girls. She had no clear knowledge, yet she knew.

She did something few girls had ever done with him. She laughed.

She dropped her cigarette and ground it out, leg flashing forward from the pleats of her skirt.