Minsk: Poems

From the London Zoo to an Essex village and the Arctic Circle, Greenlaw explores elements of place-the child-hood landscapes we leave behind, those we travel toward, and those that we believe to be missing from our lives. Greenlaw's restless, inquisitive tone builds to make Minsk a hypnotic collection from one of the leading poets of her generation.

Camel Hair

Every few years it becomes
a question of backbone.
Anhedonia,
not love of winter
but a loss of the feel of the world,
a way ahead of the cold.
Even the cells refuse
to talk to one another.
As black and white
as a two-hour wait on the kerb
of a six-lane arterial road,
in a secondhand straw-coloured Dior coat,
for the last bus and its overload
to accelerate past out of its own
well-oiled backsplash.