"you seek corners where the blackness has worn off"
Dickinson, Hayden, Bourgeois, Merwin, Mandelstam, Seferis
Emily Dickinson:
A Word dropped / careless on a Page / May stimulate an / Eye consecrate / When folded in / perpetual seam / The Wrinkled Maker / lie Author // Infection in the / sentence breeds / may / we inhale / Despair / At distances of / Centuries / From the Malaria—
Robert Hayden:
Louise Bourgeois:
W.S. Merwin:
Osip Mandelstam (trans. W.S. Merwin):
George Seferis (trans. Walter Kaiser):
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