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We Have a Poetry Contest Winner!

Read Susan Comninos’ poem

by
Unknown Author
April 29, 2010

It’s the penultimate day of National Poetry Month, which means today is Poem in Your Pocket Day in New York City! Many are celebrating by carrying a favorite poem in … well, you can probably guess where.

Earlier this month, we asked our readers to get in touch with their inner 11th century poet and reimagine so-called “poet laureate of the Jewish people” Yehuda Halevi‘s words. And today, we’re proud to announce the winner: Susan Comninos, whose poem you can enjoy below. And then later, maybe put it in your pocket?

Congratulations, Susan!

“Can I do what I’ve vowed to and must?”
– Yehuda Halevi

COVET

Thou shalt not
bear the winds higher
than they would blow. Thou shalt never

prick halls of glass
with a bow and arrow. Thou shalt fail
to sway the sky

with the ceiling, stone
through the floor, leaves
with feeling – the dense weight

of a dank heart. Thou
shalt entertain no note
without instruments, sloth

without toil – sweat from strong languor.
Thou shalt not stroke
wood of others’

baseboards, nor
bewail banisters
to a barren house. Thou

shalt bring in bees
from the hive, swear
allegiance to their stings – sing alone

of a scant
incandescence: of a lion’s
fraught den, and no honeyed signs.

-Susan Comninos

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