Rushing into the elevator

Hands full of wood frames, rolled canvas,

paint tubes and brushes

I am riding up from the ceramics studio

to the painting class.

You’d enter the metal cabinet,

to breath the same entrapped air

as the students

Did I know in those days

I’d follow your path into a literary life?

Riding the B train to the Bronx,

I visit your poem on a poster

before seeing your shrine at 167^th Street.

Lola Koundakjian is a writer, editor and translator born in Beirut, Lebanon and living in New York City since 1979. After pursuing degrees in Fine Arts and History, Lola honed her skills as an editorial board member at the Ararat Literary Quarterly. She has four poetry collections in Armenian and English. She runs the Dead Armenian Poetry Society and the online Armenian Poetry Project. Since 2010, she read at five international poetry festivals. Her work appears in various journals and international anthologies.