"Hansel": A Poem by Lea Graham

"In old Icelandic: / the joining of hands."

Beach Scene With Two Figures, 1885-90, James A. McNeill Whistler

Hansel

Handsel, (v.) to give (a person) a gift at the beginning of the year or day, on a birthday, etc., as a token of good luck.

i.

Coast Guard Beach, January 1, 2019

Gneiss and devil’s purse
and striated sky,
a gull floats along its current
then swoops to mimic
these waves: each thing
in its particularity,
time, this morning’s gift
… made as a token 
of good wishes or luck 
especially at the beginning 
of a new year

ii.

In old Icelandic: 
the joining of hands.

iii.

Fernandina Beach, January 2, 2020

Like first 
love or is it
romance? The first
time we stand
before the Wailing
Wall, before Guernica,
beside the Trevi:
we feel the only
people ever 
to be swaddled
in this surf’s song

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Lea Graham is a writer, editor and translator who lives in Hyde Park, New York. She is the author of three poetry collections, The O.E.D. Odes (forthcoming), From the Hotel Vernon (Salmon Press, 2019) and Hough & Helix & Where & Here & You, You, You (No Tell Books, 2011), along with a fine press book and four chapbooks. She is co-editor with Celia Bland of A Jar of Air: The Work of Maxine Chernoff (forthcoming, MadHat Press) and editor of From the Word to the Place: The Work of Michael Anania (MadHat Press, 2022).

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