Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June's long days, and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew. The nettles that methodically overgrow the abandoned homesteads of exiles. You must praise the mutilated world. You watched the stylish yachts and ships; one of them had a long trip ahead of it, while salty oblivion awaited others. You've seen the refugees heading nowhere, you've heard the executioners sing joyfully. You should praise the mutilated world. Remember the moments when we were together in a white room and the curtain fluttered. Return in thought to the concert where music flared. You gathered acorns in the park in autumn and leaves eddied over the earth's scars. Praise the mutilated world and the gray feather a thrush lost, and the gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns.

For Steven

The clink of tin cups in the kitchen rouses my ears. I close my book, hold my place with a fingertip while I listen: to the measuring cups, little quarrels of half against quarter, then the sifted hush of the flour. There will be kneading, there will be punching down, and rising and rising again, the press of increase constrained by the small square box in the oven, the immutable passage of time, and finally a home and a hunger filled with fragrant gold. I return to my reading, but first I thank the kitchen gods for what marriage is: throughout this immutable passage, these square impossible constraints, these petty clinkings of half against quarter, and oh this needing, oh this falling and this rising, I am blessed with a husband who makes bread