thread your fingers through whole hinges

By ANNA GLAZOVA 

 

thread your fingers through whole hinges

if the opening is blocked if there is no new

no old moon in the window.

 

behind tight brackets

is the crack that one could either be reading by a table lamp

or have spilled a full glass;

had no time to drink and was sent for stones to wear

behind his back.

 

eyes hurt from his being so used to the dark

being that a stranger against the light

who has thrown his shadow over yours behind the back weighs more than the house.

 

if the hinges lock like a chain

you will have moved

the sheet and the glass

by a half-sound.

half a sound, that’s a whole night.

 

Translated by Anna Khasin

Anna Glazova was born in Russia and now teaches and resides in Hamburg, Germany, and the United States. She is the author of three books of poems, the most recent of which was honored with the Russian Prize for Poetry in 2013. A scholar and a translator of European literature, she has translated into Russian books by Paul Celan, Robert Walser, Unica Zürn, and Ladislav Klima. A volume of her poems, in English translation by Anna Khasin, was published as Twice Under the Sun.
 
thread your fingers through whole hinges

Related Posts

October 2024 Poetry Feature: New Poems By Our Contributors

NATHANIEL PERRY
Words can contain their opposite, / pleasure at once a freedom and a ploy— / a garden something bound and original / where anything, but certain things, should thrive; / the difference between loving-kindness and loving / like the vowel shift from olive to alive.

Image of laundry hanging on a line.

Real Estate for the Blended Family (or What I Learned from Zillow)

ELIZABETH HAZEN
Sometimes I dream of gardens— // that same dirt they kick from their cleats could feed us, / grow something to sustain us. But it’s winter. // The ground is cold, and I dare not leave this room; / I want to want to fix this—to love them // after all—but in here I am safe.

Dolors Miquel and Mary Ann Newman

Dolors Miquel: Poems

DOLORS MIQUEL
In the ravine the river roars / the rocks seem made of glass, / the snow swaddles it all, / icy hands on the reins. / In the ravine time demands / in a deep invisible voice / just one human life / to turn into flesh and be free. / Just one human life. // On the cliffs of my soul