Book: "This Carting Life"

Excerpt:

In Moscow with Mandelstam

I’m getting to know Mandelstam
and his careful, monochrome voice;
his slow, uncertain steps and turns
through Moscow’s new times and sights.

This morning he greets me and hangs
his head, the winter sun spinning
off the bald dome. I join him
on his cold bench in Neskuchny Park.

Now and again he takes my hand
in his own, arachnid old and thin,
and squeezes it so gently
to stress a point or find comfort.

[continue the poem...]