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MARINA BLITSHTEYN

Marina Blitshteyn was born in Moldova and grew up in Buffalo, NY. Her poetry has appeared in Anamesa, Wag's Revue, Fawlt and No, Dear, among others, and her chapbook, Russian for Lovers, was published by Argos Books in 2011.

Winding the Watch

Honorary Mention in the 2011 Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition

          This takes finesse, I said to him,

the pressure caught between my thumb

and forefinger, so that the clockwise

turn is firm enough to shift the gears.

My little wires tense up at the thought—

the mechanism of decay is frail,

as is the patient fixture that it’s in.

          Take it every day into your palm, it purrs

and clicks its heels, and takes you by the hand

to teach it how to go. Do it like this,

he said, with a little finesse,

and watch the wheel wind

into a single disc, feel the spring kick,

the heart of it still clean, intact, unharmed.

          You could turn it over calmly on its face,

figure the brass parts as precise

as you are, as developed and exacting

as this second hand, now lifting

the watch from its case, now taking its pulse

and keeping it warm, holding it so that we feel its shape,

winding it so that it stays set, though we may be scared

of a hair-thin pin misplacing itself by chance,

or a singularly careless misstep costing us

each piece of its elaborate dance, we take it on

forgiving the responsibility of the wait,

and steady the knob and count split-seconds

so that our revolutions are not too hard,

too fast, or too late.

©2011 Marina Blitshteyn

Author Links

Poems by Blitshteyn in Fawlt

Buy Russian for Lovers, a chapbook by Blitshteyn

Anamesa Journal (free online) containing 'Fugue', a Blitshteyn poem

'The Drama of "Call Me" ', poem by Blitshteyn in Wag's Revue Issue 5 (free online)