“The way the walls . . .”

by Annemette Kure Andersen

translated from the Danish by Thom Satterlee

The way the walls in this room
hold the sun’s
warmth from yesterday until
today when the sky is
covered with clouds
I imagine
words have the
same ability to
save that
first radiance within
their blue
shadows

 

Annemette Kure Andersen, born in Ribe, Denmark, in 1962, studied at the University of Aarhus, receiving her MA in Italian literature in 1990. Her seventh collection of poetry, Vandskel (Borgen), appeared in spring 2005.

Thom Satterlee is associate professor of English at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. Some of his recent translations of Annemette Kure Andersen’s poetry have appeared in Sulphur River Review, Osiris, Black Warrior Review, The Literary Review, and Verse. (9/2007)