Burroughs Adding Machine

Nine prominent poets memorialize the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in today’s NYT. Mark Doty writes about an ordinary construction site in his U.S. neighborhood; Russian poet Vera Pavlova contrasts the momentous occasion with her everyday experiences as a mother.

Yusef Komunyakaa writes in “Nostalgia” (my favorite of the bunch):

While the east slept in the arms of the west

each house broke into two divided houses

& concertina rolled out across the dead of night

to cleave a full moon.

and

Let’s not speak of official good & evil,

but of a man and woman spooning bodies,

knowing what it takes to make love

go through gray concrete brightly.