The V between her fingers—there are shouts from the rue de la Harpe. Vive! flies up to our third-floor window. Long live my marrow pressed in this wedge, Vive! every part of me tightened in this vise.

raised wings
a sparrow
landing on the ledge

—First appeared in Frogpond (Volume 31, Number 3, Fall 2008); republished here by author’s permission

Bio: Charles Hansmann