I'd seen him scuttling under a parked car
In the oil-stained side street near the auto shop,
Or peering from beneath the juniper bush

How stupid Penelope's suitors must have been,
Each morning as they elbowed for a place
Near her, and cocked their wits, eyeing each other,

speaking over the telephone while ironing a blouse
with French cuffs

Thus each occasion takes its initial from the character of its environment.

To love & hard febril disalligned, continually

disalligned almost disheartened fearing

disappointment in you or disgrace in lack

Leona heard the engines again, the great
cranes outside her window breaking up the old history,
the bulldozers striking layers of rock that ran

Paddles sloshing in tunnel.

Volume: all thumbs.

Dis-ser-vice? Naaa...

For him it is always a Shabbat
of words. Fire is forbidden:
even the memory of ashes.

The air is measurable. Clocks
bell, publishing hour on hour
each other’s truth, one two, three four:

Gunnery practise dubs the Judean hills.
Anna Ticho stopped painting for many years.
Her eyes a still small voice, eroded