I See That I Must Give What

When My Parents Were Liberated, Four Years Before I Was Born, They Found That The Ordinary World Outside The Camp Had Been Eradicated. There Was No More Simple Meal, No Thing Was Less Than Extraordinary: A Fork, A Mattress, A Clean Shirt, A Book. Not To Mention Such Things That Can Make One Weep: An Orange, Meat And Vegetables, Hot Water. There Was No Ordinariness To Return To, No Refuge From The Blinding Potency Of Things, An Apple Screaming Its Sweet Juice.

No One Is Born Just Once. If You're Lucky, You'll Emerge Again In Someone's Arms; Or Unlucky, Wake When The Long Tail Of Terror Brushes The Inside Of Your Skull.

Like Other Ghosts, She Whispers; Not For Me To Join Her, But So That, When I'm Close Enough, She Can Push Me Back Into The World.

Reading A Poem In Translation Is Like Kissing A Woman Through A Veil.

When You Put A Tremendous Amount Of Love Into Your Work, As In Any Relationship, You Can't Know - You Can Only Hope - That What You're Offering Will In Some Way Be Received. You Shape Your Love To Artistic Demands, To The Rigors Of Your Genre. But Still, It's A Labor Of Love, And It's The Nature Of Love That You Must Give It Freely.