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Eucalypti stand in rows
of leg and bushy haunch,
remains of fatted cattle ripped away.
Next signs we’ll see are fires lining roads;
or missiles spearing land; or ministers,
a dime a dozen, walking streets, their gullets
broad enough to swill a school of children—
they intimidate history, they make it shake.
Will a father’s cardboard house constrain
his children drawn to public squares,
where passion’s hung like summer lamps
and candied lights wink from a precipice.
And can this wooded tongue persuade
my fine limbed boy, face flush with rage,
that principle is a tree we do not lean against
in lightning. I strain in night’s swift flash
and see at last the nightmare that
has swallowed me is opening its eye.
__________
Chaim is a student at the MFA program in Queens College, New York, focusing on writing
poetry. Prior to joining the program, he had practiced law in New York for several decades. He
lives in Manhattan with his wife. His children are sometimes in New York, but usually
elsewhere.