WALK
The podiatrist operates on your big
toe
Actually removing the nail with what looks
like
A pliers and then cauterizing the oozing
bed
With caustic oil. He says in a week or
so
You should be able to walk
without
Agony. He tells you walking
Is essential to health. His parents
were
Holocaust survivors. The day they
walked
Out of the abandoned
barracks.
Living skeletons, their feet
Wrapped in rags, what a day that
was!
How they walked to the D.P. camps,
walked
On ship decks, walked to the immense
fortune
Of a son who learned at the
university
To fix feet like yours. So walk!
THE YEAR OF THE SHEEP (OR THE GOAT)
It was decided that separating the goats from the
sheep
Would be provident, as sheep are
considered
Sweet and cuddly and
obedient,
Pleasant to count as one courts
sleep.
Sheep leaping from cloud to
cloud.
A goat is bad-smelling
And malevolent. Like Pan or
Satan.
It escapes. Climbs trees. Anoints
itself
With urine. Violates the
virgins.
Goat or sheep: the year is
unlucky.
Evil omens abide: accidents, tornadoes,
typhoons.
Feng Shui master Clement Chan
foresees
Fires and crashes.
Last year at Shanghai Hospital women induced
birth
To beat the calendar and produce a
child
Born in the year of the Lucky
Horse.
Sheep are unfortunate; they get
fleeced.
Goats are laden with sin and
driven
Out of the village into the
storm.
The future looks bleak or
woolly.
The cloven-hooved ones speak
Of trouble with love or
money.
The portents gather in
flocks
Of the stupid and the uncanny.
LONESOME DOVE
Every morning the owl-like
query
Requisitioning sunlight.
The trees long-division finds
them
Wanting. A negative number.
A
Fraction of hurt. Grey as
Quakers
On a quest for illumination to the
lawns
Of those just waking. We are
troubled
By their petition. How they ask,
but
Never answer. We don’t know
either,
This equation that suspends
Logic. It’s querulous,
patient
As a monk at the prie dieu
Waiting to be blessed with
understanding
That morning means mourning
Somewhere for someone.
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