POEM
Bogin, Nina
POEM Nina Bogin The Stillborn The stillborn have no claim on this world. They are quiet and distant, taking care of themselves, perfect as whorled shells, as starfish navigating point by...
...They are quiet and distant, taking care of themselves, perfect as whorled shells, as starfish navigating point by point along the shallows, as the smallest seahorses grazing in the sands...
...No, it's as if a path had been traced for them across a clean beach with footprints ready for them to fall into step, to walk into the dazzling wind of their lives...
...They have nothing in common with death...
...Nina Bogin lives in France, where she teaches English in an engineering school and translates art criticism...
...And when they turned back, remained crustacean, slowly the footprints unmade themselves, each grain of sand, one after the other, tumbled back into the sea...
...Her first book of poems was "In the North" (Graywolf Press), and she is completing a new collection called "The Winter Orchards...
Vol. 61 • December 1997 • No. 12
