Ilya Kaminsky

MARINA TSVETAEVA

In each line's strange syllable: she awakes
as a gull, torn
between heaven and earth.

I accept her, stand with her face to face.
--in this dream: she wears her dress
like a sail, runs behind me, stopping

when I stop. She laughs
as a child speaking to herself:
"soul = pain + everything else."

I bend clumsily at the knees
and I quarrel no more,
all I want is a human window

in a house whose roof is my life.

Previously published in Mars Hill Review

Location:	San Francisco, California
Email:	ik001f@yahoo.com
Publications:	The New Republic, American Literary Reivew, etc.
Awards:	Ruth Lilly Fellowship from Poetry Magazine, Milton Center Award, writer in residence at Phillips Exeter Academy, etc.
Editor of:	In Posse Review

- August 2002 - hornet Body Parts for Art Naming Trees Divinity is for angels Hogs Loosed En Route to Slaughter The Masturbating Baboon at the Brookfield Zoo Marina Tsvetaeva First Time Crow and Raven Rembrandt while Saskia Watched Instead of the Usual - Stirring's Steamiest Six - The Word Witness It Wasn't Until Later It Not Love Amoroso