Poem: After Reading Nelly Sachs

Poetry has opened all my pores,
and pain as colorless as gas
moves in. I notice now the bones
that weld my child together
under her fragile skin; the crowds
of unassuming leaves that wait
on every corner for burning;
even your careless smile — bright teeth
that surely time will cut through
like a rough knife kerneling corn.

From “A Perfect Circle of Sun,” Swallow Press (1971)

Linda Pastan’s 14th book of poems, “Insomnia,” was published by W.W. Norton & Co. in the fall of 2015. She is a former poet laureate of Maryland and in 2003 won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement.