Paper, who told you the way of the thin place?
“She whispered to me through her red-berry lips—
‘Paper, you are a thin place too, like the trees.’
She kissed each letter as each letter kissed me,
her hands bound the red twine over memory.
She comes from the thin place too, from this forest,
and the mountain vale—she’s a bridge between worlds.
Out of the dark-green leaves, branches, and the snow—
she casts her spell here and knows she is home too.”
You have spoken true, and understand the way
of the thin place—where you were when you first began.
Now, Paper, you are free—
Sincerely, the Tree.
Eamon O’Caoineachan is a poet, originally from Co. Donegal, Ireland, but living in Houston, Texas. His work is published in several poetry journals. He is the recipient of The Robert Lee Frost-Vince D’Amico Poetry Award and the Rev. Edward A. Lee Endowed Scholarship in English at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. He has his Master in Liberal Arts in English. His first poetry collection, Dolphin Ghosts was published in Spring 2021.
When Clea returns to London with her new Russian husband, she is surprised to see him become even more eccentric.
A haunting dystopia some readers have called “the new 1984.” In a society where memory is rewritten and resistance is pre-approved, freedom isn’t restricted; it’s redefined. As systems evolve beyond human control and choice becomes a simulation, true defiance means refusing the script, even when the system already knows you will.
“13 short pieces…pungently convey the effects of growing up under a totalitarian regime.” .—Publishers Weekly
Original poetry by Nina Kossman, accompanied by a selection of poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, translated from Russian by Kossman. “The sea is a postcard,” writes Nina Kossman. There is both something elemental in this vision and—iron-tough.”
—Ilya Kaminsky
