Andrea Cohen
Five POEMS
To the Woman Going Up the Escalator at Columbus Circle at Five-Thirty Last Evening
You were holding
a fortunate orchid.
I was not
the slob standing
beside you. I
was the slob behind,
one who’d live
happily on half
an ice cube
now and again
to ascend once
to a blue
moon with you.
Coming in From the Cold
However swiftly you
come in, some
cold comes with you.
Prayer
Dear God, give me the strength––
in the presence of deaf
gods––to stop praying.
In the Middle of the Stone
In the middle of the stone
there was a road
there was a road
in the middle of the stone
you had to look for it
you had to believe
that in the middle of a stone
there could be a road
in the middle of you
a way of going
First Love
She was
always
leaving
the dark on.
Andrea Cohen has poems forthcoming in The New Yorker, The Threepenny Review, Plume, Tikkun, and elsewhere. Her fifth poetry collection is Unfathoming (Four Way Books 2017). Recent books include Furs Not Mine and Kentucky Derby. Cohen directs the Writers House at Merrimack College and the Blacksmith House Poetry Series in Cambridge, MA.