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