IN THE MARKET

 

That woman from whom you 

Just now bought a shoelace -- 

Sturdy, dark-eyed, a bit stout --

Was Persephone until she saw

Some Spring's first blossom 

And wasn't at all surprised.

MIRROR

 

Knowing it's for the last time, he leaves his bed

And goes to say farewell to his reflection

Who fails to keep the appointment, sending

Some transparently untrustworthy stranger

With uncombed hair and shifty eyes.

BEING INFORMED

 

Esther would have known that after she died

It would be necessary to spill out any water

Standing in the house no matter where it was

Since the Angel of Death -- known to be 

Curiously fastidious -- might have rinsed his knife

Before hurrying to his next appointment. 

RIDER AND DRIVER

 

Since it's just the sort of overpowered black car

You'd expect Death to have I'm not surprised 

To see him driving it, his hands at ten and two;

My Aunt Rose, having called shotgun, sits beside him.

This too is not surprising though I wonder

How she persuaded him to wear a chauffeur's cap.

She nods at me and carefully turns one gloved hand

Thirty degrees to the left then thirty degrees to the right --

A monarch acknowledging a subject's existence.

She looks pretty well, all things considered,

Her eyes still blue and sharp and cold.

FLUTE

 

Silence is, of course,

Silence so when I ask

What's with the flute

You're carrying

She says 

Nothing but points

To the small drum

She has strapped to her hip 

Which I suppose

Wanted company.

ACCESSORIZING

 

1918; Max reads Charles Reznikoff's poem

About the shopgirls leaving work

So the rats and roaches can begin their shifts

Reznikoff's family makes hats. Sometimes

Reznikoff sells them. Max makes coats.

On her day off, a shopgirl -- I see her

As tall and thin and talkative, moving

Rapidly or not at all -- could wear

A Reznikoff hat and a Max-made coat;

My other grandfather, Joe 

Could make a watch for her. No;

It's 1918 and Joe is in the army. His father

Juda will have to make it and sell it

From his shop on a street that will disappear

Thirty years later to make an approach

To the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Still

We in 1918 could care less; we're thinking

Of that tall shopgirl and wondering

What, if anything, she's wearing

Besides a coat and a hat and a watch.

PRAYER

 

I have sinned, Saint 467 --

Intercede for me and I

Will build for you an altar

Between those of Saint 394

Who once lent me ten dollars

And Saints 606 and 909

One of whom gave me a cat.