(From work in progress)
“the poetry of your enemy . . .” Adrienne Rich
“enmity is useless for me on the roads of the sky . . .”
Odysseas Elytis
“If I don’t manage to fly, someone else will.
The Spirit wants only that there be flying.
As for who happens to do it . . .
In that it has only a passing interest.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
coming home
from the school in the rubble
she holds a melting ball of cheese
the Dutch have sent
to her father who explains
it is butter
because in Holland cows
give milk and what
cows are and what she asks
do the Swiss have for milk
because she’s read the word
neutral which he explains
getting ready for work
his uniform his gun and belt
when I grow up
I’ll live in Switzerland she says
to his chastened face
knowing nothing of chocolate
and banks
nor the stretched
to it uttermost
shield of a dental dam
damping the vocal cords and green against the throngs
at its borders of the land
half a century later
she will not want to wake in
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