Acclimatization
I forget meticulously
I forget scrupulously
my native landscape
my daily landscape
I forget the ragged
I forget the billowy
clouds in a sky
clouds over a town
I forget to the end
I forget them nonstop
—faces cloaked in the dusk
behind windows of trains.
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Passover
I set my table with metaphor:
the curling parsley—green sign nailed to the doors
of God’s underground; salt of desert and eyes;
the roasted shank bone of a Pascal lamb,
relic of sacrifice and…
Woodchucks
Gassing the woodchucks didn’t turn out right.
The knockout bomb from the Feed and Grain Exchange
was featured as merciful, quick at the bone
and the case we had against them was airtight,
both exits…
Diving into the Wreck
First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am…
Jews in Hell
The fable tells us
that the Jews bought for themselves
a private place in hell.
In the first circle,
seated on a wooden bench,
Karl Marx fans himself with his hand.
The prophet Jeremiah
fights off…
Grandfather Is Facing Death
Not as if it were an accident,
not as if he were leaving Prague and coming to Havana,
eight years later bringing Mama,
to put her behind the cash register,
instill certain principles,
give her little…
To Be of Use
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek…