thread your fingers through whole hinges

By ANNA GLAZOVA 

 

thread your fingers through whole hinges

if the opening is blocked if there is no new

no old moon in the window.

 

behind tight brackets

is the crack that one could either be reading by a table lamp

or have spilled a full glass;

had no time to drink and was sent for stones to wear

behind his back.

 

eyes hurt from his being so used to the dark

being that a stranger against the light

who has thrown his shadow over yours behind the back weighs more than the house.

 

if the hinges lock like a chain

you will have moved

the sheet and the glass

by a half-sound.

half a sound, that’s a whole night.

 

Translated by Anna Khasin

Anna Glazova was born in Russia and now teaches and resides in Hamburg, Germany, and the United States. She is the author of three books of poems, the most recent of which was honored with the Russian Prize for Poetry in 2013. A scholar and a translator of European literature, she has translated into Russian books by Paul Celan, Robert Walser, Unica Zürn, and Ladislav Klima. A volume of her poems, in English translation by Anna Khasin, was published as Twice Under the Sun.
 

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

thread your fingers through whole hinges

Related Posts

Hitting a Wall and Making a Door: A Conversation between Phillis Levin and Diane Mehta

DIANE MEHTA and PHILLIS LEVIN
This conversation took place over the course of weeks—over daily phone calls and long emails, meals when they were in the same place, and a weekend in the Connecticut countryside. The poets share what they draw from each other’s work, and the work of others, exploring the pleasures of language, geometric movement, and formal constraint.

Waterfall

River Landscape

DANIELA ALCIVAR BELLOLIO
The image came to him all the time, uncontrollably, relentlessly: a face, combining incomprehension and terror perfectly, as though they were a natural combination. Pain was almost absent from this mixture, though he was certain that there, too, must have been pain. The image came to him all the time.

Anna Malihot and Olena Jenning's headshots

August 2025 Poetry Feature: Anna Malihon, translated by Olena Jennings

ANNA MALIHON
The girl with a bullet in her stomach / runs across the highway to the forest / runs without saying goodbye / through the news, the noble mold of lofty speeches / through history, geography, / curfew, a day, a century / She is so young that the wind carries / her over the long boulevard between bridges