Poem: Chagall

It is snowing
fiddle notes
on the village of Vitebsk
where brides float up
like the wicks
of Sabbath candles.
In the kitchens
the dough cries out
to be braided,
or is it the hair
of the youngest daughter
newly washed
in ochre?

“Chagall” appeared in “The Five Stages of Grief.” Linda Pastan’s 14th book of poems, “Insomnia,” was published by Norton in 2015. She is a former Poet Laureate of Maryland and in 2003 won the Ruth Lily Prize for lifetime achievement.