Poetry

The Hour Between Dog and Wolf

Laure-Anne Bosselaar's poetry captures the lives of "lost souls roaming": be they young girls in convents, merchants, whores, widows, soldiers, nuns or farmers. Eccentric, vibrant people, who lived in Europe in the midst of the fallout from the World Wars, are imagined, remembered, made unforgettable. Other poems speak to her experiences in America, her reflections on her european childhood and to adult love and intimacy.

This Morning, God

          Four A.M. Snow on the roof like a stone slab.
I wake in the dark again, leave my husband,
tiptoe into the kitchen, silently stir my coffee
with a plastic spoon: I don't want to wake him.

          I won't forget those dawns without him:
slam the doors, slap the lights on, stir in my coffee
with metal things to chase away the ghouls
of the lonely choking me in their burlap wings.

          Today, I stand in the middle of our house,
everything still with unblemished intensity: no wind,
no moon, not even the weary whir of an insect hovering.
Leave me here: with the smell of coffee, and this

          other scent ebbing from my body: sex, my husband,
our bed. Let me tiptoe through our house, press my palms
and face to the bedroom door an instant so the rest of the day
will be easy: work, phone, traffic, more work--

          the incessant beating in my chest for two now.

© BOA Editions, Ltd 1997

Available editions:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paperback ISBN: 1-880238-47-0
Price: $12.50
Publishing Date: June 1997

FormatPaperback

Publication DateJune 1, 1997

ISBN1-880238-47-0

$12.50

About the Author

A native of Belgium, Laure-Anne Bosselaar has lived and worked throughout Europe and the United States. She is the author of three collections of poetry in English: The Hour Between Dog & Wolf (BOA, 1997); Small Gods of Grief (BOA, 2001); and A New Hunger (Copper Canyon Press, 2007). Bosselaar was awarded a fellowship at the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and was a Writer in Residence at The Vermont Studio Center and at Hamilton College. She is currently translating American poetry into French and Flemish poetry into English, and teaches at the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. For more information about Laure-Anne Bosselaar, visit laureannebosselaar.com.