Adriana Cloud is a master of the provocative statement. Hybrid, unpredictable, sometimes surreal, her images are kept taut by both grammar and larger intention. One result: Instructions for Building a Wind Chime is a chapbook of equally powerful unity and variety.
—Jane Hirshfield
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Instructions for Building a Wind Chime by Adriana Cloud
Winner of the 2015 PSA Chapbook Fellowship
Instructions for Building a Wind Chime by Adriana Cloud, selected and introduced by Jane Hirshfield.
Edition: 500 copies of the winning books were printed by the Prolific Group and designed by Gabriele Wilson, with covers by Ashley Goldberg.
$8.00
Instructions For Telling Time
It was two o’clock twice one night.
Maybe the church bell was drunk or maybe time
lingered on a bridge
distracted by the idea of water.
My grandfather’s donkey was called Sasha.
He used to hit her.
The bell has a tongue and uses it
to say Yes. Yes. Yes. What if you could
say only one thing for the rest of your life,
how your mouth would blister.
A bell is like an ocean but more precise.
He was a carpenter, his hands
smelled like splinters,
sawdust lapped at his feet.
The bell remembers every time you were late,
has a list of your insomnia
in alphabetical order.
Once he cried because after many months
I went back to visit.
All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
