Nan Cohen

Still Life with Books in a Niche, Barthélémy d’Eyck, 1442 – 1445

From the Lost Notebook 5

Sunlight on the page

There is a difference between sitting in midwinter
knowing the fact that it will be warmer when summer comes

&

imagining yourself sitting in the sunshine next summer feeling
the heat on your skin

        (Hammond—an English way of seeing)

& between remembered sun—

summers & winters
windows & parkbenches & steps of the chapel in spring

at her mother’s funeral I held Deborah’s hands
and she cried out Why does everyone look at me like that

The same sun—
or not

4 MILLION TONS OF MATTER TO ENERGY EVERY SECOND

Fragile pages open to light and air


Nan Cohen’s books are two full-length poetry collections, Rope Bridge and Unfinished City, and a chapbook, Thousand-Year-Old Words. The recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship and an NEA Literature Fellowship, she lives in Los Angeles, California. nancohen.org

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Spring 2022