NarrativeMagazine.com
Two Poems
Shirley Kaufman is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently Roots in the Air: New and Selected Poems and Threshold. Much honored, she has twice received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the Shelley Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Israel President’s Prize for Poetry in English. Born in Seattle, Kaufman immigrated to Jerusalem in 1973.
by Shirley Kaufman
Art
TURNER HAD himself tied
to the mast of a ship
to experience a storm at sea
Every sailor was ordered
below deck
only the painter
and the waves.
Only
the risk of surrender
the first time we love.
How tight we hang on
to keep from drowning.
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