the dry goods dealer / sits in his shop and eats smoked / herring from the can

like the silent aisles of food / his head is neat and dreamless

his work is the line / that leads him from yesterday / to another night

and when he comes home alone / he melts the ice off his bed

the shoppers whisper / one to another about / a man without hands

who lay face down in the road / soaked through with oily water

the early spring rains / fall on the roofs like applause / at sein theater

while the clouds stand hard and black / with cold smiles of discretion

To be continued…