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North

North

By Madeleine Slavick

milky air
silent plains

it could be snow
this might be another country

 

crossing the Yangtze
we are grace in the making

and the train hums
like a man I want to love

 

bare trees appear
singular in winter bodies

oversized nests
must be minds

 

I hear wind and morning
locked in a room

count nine plastic bags
under four clouds

mud, cigarettes
cold hands

 

cities grow rings
nests remain

this country and I live
hardly speaking with each other

and snow has landed

Biography

a photo of Madeleine Slavick

Madeleine Slavick’s eight books include Fifty Stories Fifty Images of Hong Kong, her most recent collection; My Favourite Thing, a bestseller in Beijing; Round - Poems and Photographs of Asia, winner of Seattle’s Bumbershoot Book Award; and China – The Dragon Awakes, a bestseller in Hong Kong. As a photographer, she has exhibited her work in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Born in the United States, she has lived in Hong Kong for almost 25 years, and now resides in Wairarapa, New Zealand.

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