​The beam splitter spits my image
Back at me and sends my other
Half sputtering into the universe.
At night, I dream about my mother,

About a planet with purple folds of light
Looping through the sky. Sometimes I learn
About exotic birds, and sometimes about
Exotic particles, and they flame and burn.

At night in Babylon, the blackness
Is so thick, it presses down
The gables. From here, we can see 
The river, from our tumble-down.

You know, if you’re not afraid
To drown, you can swim and reach
The city whose shops blaze at night
And scholars stand beneath a beech.

​Birds are flying in the aviary, 
Letters are flying inside thoughts,
And all of us are receiving calls
Sent by floating astronauts,

We knead dough and shape it into
Forms of wings, we weep, we sing,
And all the time we hear the roaring
Surf, at night the buoys ring.

​His heart was broken because
Nothing in this world pleased
Him. Nothing in this world was
Ever good enough. The dim

Lights, it was hard to hear
Anyone. He remembered how
Once all the lights had been
Turned on, colors blazed, the cow

In the field was radiant, he wants
The fields suffused with a simple
Light. But now the landscape shrivels
Up, the sparrows and the falcons crimple,

“I am in pain, I taste a bitter taste,
From the depths I call out to Him,
It is hidden beneath my tongue,
There, the thunder and the seraphim.”

​All of these thoughts clump together,
Wet, black strands alongside
A country road at two in the morning.
First, how can they be pried

Apart? Move the entire landscape
Into another room. Add sunshine,
Eyeglasses, generously wide 
Walkways. Add some eglantine,

Now separate those revolting strands,
Wait a while, you’ll see them shrink
And pull apart. You’ll wonder how
They ever pulled you into the sink

Of overwhelming confusion (until
Your only surcease lay in dreams
Of sleep beneath a snow-white
Frozen pine). The river teems

With salmon, and those thick, black
Strands are turning into dust,
Particles of tar, of gold,
Of crushed despair and self-disgust.

​Sometimes, we take in impressions,
Even memories, a pink apartment
Building, that we have nothing
Left inside. Take nourishment,

If you are able, from the spikes
Of the railroad tracks, from
Everything, reinforce those other
Rails from your heart to the palm

Of your hand, and the food that you
See, the bins of avocado,
Are good, are yours, leave out
The memory of that bravado

That teetered on the edge of
Misery, leave out the discarded
Packaging materials, the scattered
Cardboard trash, let the retarded

Light seep slowly into your marrow,
Across the boundary of your brain,
Until the light is switched on
And the morning is rich with rain

​Maybe not you or me, but some
Of us need to cross a river
Of flames to burn out
Of themselves, with a shiver,

The images of this world, 
The hills bumping along
The horizon, the gravel on
The road, until their strong

Work has turned the store,
The storekeeper, the street
Into sheets of flame,
And everything they eat,

And their words are white
And holy, then they do not
Suffer from the flaming river
Burning their marrow, the hot

Dissolution, but they
Are walking in a river
That never ceases, a magnified
Echo of a joyful quiver.

​The stars were falling, different
Parts of his mind were sparking,
Flashlights swung around the cave,
The rhythm of the crickets was marking

A measured pulse. When I climb
The stairs, when I struggle up the ladder,
And study the manuals, I see
The stars and not merely their scatter.

​She came from Algeria. He came
From Uzbakistan. When they got
Married, they lit a bonfire,
Filled with figures, in Tzefat.

​Timelessness pours into time. Do not
Set aside time to unscroll the scroll,
Because you always cling to the letters
That swirl and pile up in the bowl,

And continue to glow. The lighthouse keeper
Himself is shining on those near
To him or far, on the living and
The dead, on the ocean past the pier,

A sea that roars with your thoughts,
A sea whose waves touch the sky,
And if you wish to enter its sapphire blue,
You will see the angels and will not die.

​The electric fan breaks down, it
Blows in the wrong direction, it
Rattles and creeps across the floor,
It struggles and creaks with grit,

That needs to be attended to, 
Here we need a new approach, first
Sit and calmly contemplate 
The situation, the burst

Housing, revise your understanding,
Your concepts, review the laws
Of cause and effect, apply them to
The bent housing, the crankshaft flaws.