by Caroline Adams

A pair so slender conjoins; twin hands,
at ends reach the fragile skin of hands.

Innocence not nearly as pure as the calm,
wrestled only by the constant spin of hands.

Rest to the drowsy brush of silken dawn,
spreading evenly, triangles of light therein hands.

O’ how they press so heavily upon each other’s palms!
Cupping the shortened breath of light within hands.

Two, fleeing the ever–pasty air of morn,
they reach to grasp the linen with hands.

Hanging as coats against the small hills,
a couple of gentle – reaching, pinned hands.

Only a daze rests upon the day, as eyelids,
they shelter the distance with twin hands.

Touching her collarbone, light as water,
they carry the line of glow until hers become dim hands.

by Andrea L. Watson

We are blaze you find such dangerous beauty —
One thousand jewels confined as dangerous beauty.

Veil us in raven–cloth.  Paint our windows jet.
For centuries defined: Danger is beauty.

Stone us, ask us to eat your fallen fruit:
Skin is opal rind of danger – etched beauty.

Beat us; brand us; bind our rubied feet.
Ancients declare our kind danger (if beauty).

O, cut out our tender lotus, moist pearl
On which you dined with danger as beauty.

Press us with rocks for two darkling moles;
Obsidian refined what danger owes beauty.

Carve our amber breasts.  Adorn us in radium.
Silver strands entwined — Danger us, beauty.

Array us in shrouds of sapphired weave:
Widow – cloth designed for danger in beauty.

Burn us with eternity husbands, onyx
Ash refined to danger . . . risk . . . beauty.

Pretend the sky is blind to dangerous beauty —
Sun’s topaz eye divined such dangerous beauty.

by Yehudit Ben-Zvi Heller
     translated by Agha Shahid Ali with the poet

My grandmother always served
tea hot in cups of thin glass,
thin with patience, thin with use,
and we waited for them to cool.

We must always wait, she said,
the way we do, with wine, for Elijah.
But the eyes must remain
open.

And her eyes were blue.

by Yehudit Ben-Zvi Heller
     translated by Agha Shahid Ali with the poet

Listen
The fall of the snow
like sand rustled to a hiss in the wind
it stings
calms
dazzles

till, for a moment, we forget the zero cold
                                 the day’s searing frost
                                      everything that hurts
Listen