LXVII
Tour the strange elation, air it against thorn
white as a foxhound ivory miniature greyhound
on tether albino leather.
White as birchbark or paper: white-inked like the reaper.
Day is dark, stark as one prayer occurring;
dreams these nights boxcars of bright coal:
wind-weather dreams
small hooded figure in the cold
not death a slender girl
child in reams of bundled air, blue light.
I’m told I’ve gone back into my 6-second shiver.
by my kind document official
all bricks
like pearls laid in
in dark ether.
Lynn Strongin was born in New York City and grew up in an artistic Russian Jewish home. She has won two PEN grants, one NEA grant, and recently had work nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She's published twelve books, including a new anthology The Sorrow Pslams: A Book of Twentieth Century Elegy, from the University of Iowa Press (2006). Her first full-length book in thirty years Rembrandt's Smock will be published early in 2007 by Plain View Press. New work is forthcoming in The Literary Imagination and Snow Monkey. The Montreal e-zine Ygradsil will be publishing a special double issue in June/July devoted to her, featuring criticism, reviews, a bibliography, as well as new work from her.