The Best American poetry, 2000 / Rita Dove, editor ; David Lehman, series editor.

Includes bibliographical references.

Virgin spring / Kim Addonizio -- Semiotics / Pamela Alexander -- Shot glass / A.R. Ammons / Mary Todd on her deathbed / Julianna Baggott -- Choose your garden / Erin Belieu -- Mango, number 61 / Richard Blanco -- The year / Janet Bowdan -- Crow is walking / Grace Butcher -- Signs / Lucille Clifton -- Man listening to disc / Billy Collins -- Between periods / Jim Daniels -- The most beautiful word / Linh Dinh -- Immigrant picnic / Gregory Djanikian -- Incest taboo / Denise Duhamel -- Birthday / Christopher Edgar -- Alpha images / Karl Elder -- Walt, I salute you! / Lynn Emanuel -- Mrs. Hill / B.H. Fairchild -- We did not fear the father / Charles Fort -- Seven roses / Frank X. Gaspar -- And in the afternoons I botanized / Elton Glaser -- For the other world / Ray Gonzalez -- The last living castrato / Jennifer Grotz -- The dump / Thom Gunn -- Before / Mark Halliday -- Ode to the lost luggage warehouse at the Rome airport / Barbara Hamby -- Goldsboro narratives / Forrest Hamer -- Air for Mercury / Brenda Hillman -- Considering the demise of everything / Marsha Janson -- Epistle / Mark Jarman -- Ghosts / Patricia Spears Jones -- Plea for forgivenes / Rodney Jones -- Ralph : a love story / Donald Justice -- Six apologies, Lord / Olena Kalytiak Davis -- At the grave of Harold Goldstein / David Kirby -- The oration / Carolyn Kizet -- The muse of the actual / Lynne Knight -- The goddess of quotas laments / Yusef Komunyakaa -- Henry Clay's mouth / Thomas Lux -- We take our children to Ireland / Lynne McMahon -- The hours of darkness / W.S. Merwin -- Lost parrot / Susan Mitchell -- Aunt Lily and Frederick the Great / Jean Nordhaus -- Work / Mary Oliver -- I do not / Michael Palmer -- Paris / Paul Perry -- All art ... / Carl Phillips -- Samurai song / Robert Pinsky -- History & bikinis / Donald Platt -- Kunitz tending roses / Stanley Plumly -- Permanence / Lawrence Raab -- The beach at Falmouth Heights, summer, 1952 / Thomas Rabbitt -- Au pair / Mary Jo Salter -- Welcome to Ithaca / Rebecca Seiferle -- Postfeminism / Brenda Shaughnessy -- from Black series / Laurie Sheck -- Semantics at four p.m. / Reginald Shepherd -- The dislocated room / Richard Siken -- Mother of us all / Cathy Song -- Chit-chat with the Junior League women / Gary Soto -- In a field outside the town / Gabriel Spera -- Asphodel / A.E. Stallings -- Wings / Susan Stewart -- The English canon / Adrienne Su -- There is a lake of ice on the moon / Pamela Sutton -- No palms / Dorothea Tanning -- Limen / Natasha Trethewey -- Song / Quincy Troupe -- Rahim Multani / Reetika Vazirani -- As I was telling David and Alexandra Kelley / Paul Violi -- Pissarro at dusk / Derek Walcott -- Fabrications / Richard Wilber -- Analysis of the rose as sentimental despair / Susan Wood -- Borrowed love poems / John Yau -- The infirmament / Dean Young.