Author: Lisel Mueller

You have read War and Peace. Now here is Sister Carrie, Not up to Tolstoy; still It will second the […]

In 1936, a child In Hitler’s Germany, What did I know about the war in Spain? Andalusia was a tango […]

1992 1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea. 2) In the year of my birth, […]

If an inaudible whistle Blown between our lips Can send him home to us, Then silence is perhaps The sound […]

Such insignificance: a glance At your record on the doctor’s desk Or a letter not meant for you. How could […]

Among rocks, I am the loose one, Among aarows, I am the heart, Among daughters, I am the recluse, Among […]

I. Insomnia The bulb at the front door burns and burns. If it were a white rose it would tire […]

In Sleeping Beauty’s castle The clock strikes one hundred years And the girl in the tower returns to the world. […]

What happened is, we grew lonely Living among the things, So we gave the clock a face, The chair a […]

For Linda Foster I Because we used to have leaves And on damp days Our muscles feel a tug, Painful […]

When the moon was full they came to the water. Some with pitchforks, some with rakes, Some with sieves and […]

The moon lies on the river Like a drop of oil. The children come to the banks to be healed […]

Jenny, your mind commands Kingdoms of black and white: You shoulder the crow on your left, The snowbird on your […]

All night the knot in the shoelace Waits for its liberation, And the match on the table packs its head […]

The laughter of women sets fire To the Halls of Injustice And the false evidence burns To a beautiful white […]

Our trees are aspens, but people Mistake them for birches; They think of us as characters In a Russian novel, […]

Speaking of marvels, I am alive Together with you, when I might have been Alive with anyone under the sun, […]

In memory of Dimitri Mitropoulos The harpist believes there is music In the skeletons of fish The French horn player […]

Doctor, you say there are no haloes Around the streetlights in Paris And what I see is an aberration Caused […]

After the kill, there is the feast. And toward the end, when the dancing subsides And the young have sneaked […]

For Lucy, who called them “ghost houses.” Someone was always leaving And never coming back. The wooden houses wait like […]