Minsk: Poems Hardcover - 2005 - 1st Edition

Details

• Title Minsk: Poems
• Author Lavinia Greenlaw; Foreword by Edward Hirsch
• Binding Hardcover
• Edition number 1st
• Edition 1
• Pages 68
• Volumes 1
• Language ENG
• Publisher Houghton Mifflin, New York
• Date 2005-04-04
• ISBN 9780151010929 / 0151010927
• Weight 0.47 lbs (0.21 kg)
• Dimensions 8.48 x 5.52 x 0.52 in (21.54 x 14.02 x 1.32 cm)
• Library of Congress Catalog Number 2004029402
• Dewey Decimal Code 821.914

THE SPIRIT OF THE STAIRCASE
In our game of flight, half-way down
was as near mid-air as it got: a point
of no return we'd fling ourselves at
over and over, riding pillows or trays.
We were quick to smooth the edge
of every step, grinding the carpet to glass
on which we'd lose our grip.
The new stairs were our new toy,
the descent to an odd extension,
four new rooms at flood level
in a sunken garden- a wing
dislocated from a hive. Young bees
with soft stripes and borderless nights,
we'd so far been squared away
in a twin-set of bunkbeds, so tight-knit,
my brother and I once woke up finishing
a conversation begun in a dream.
It had been the simplest exchange,
one I'd give much to return to:
the greetings of shadows unsurprised
at having met beneath the trees
and happy to set off again, alone,
back into the dark.

THE FALLING CITY
I was eight, I was atmosphere,
more than willing to take to the air.
The world was locked and clear.

For a moment the glass forgave me,
curved like a hand that absolutely
loved me, let me down so gently.


© Lavinia Greenlaw, 2003
Foreword © 2005 by Edward Hirsch

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"Greenlaw's poems are dreams of travel and longing for home-- they have the clarity and purity one associates with cold air."