Poetry

 

 

David M. Katz

Salvation

for Diane Cole

A salve or selva, sylvan wood.
A covert, safe house where she stood.
Here's Sylvia. The pursuers gone.
Safe in a synagogue of stone.
No baby in this nurse's arm.
The milk of Sylvia is warm.

In the woods my Sylvia goes.
Those are weeds that were her clothes.
It's in her nature to be good,
Lost forever in the winding wood.
Forever? No. She's found her clan.
We warm her soup in a makeshift pan.

We warm her soup, and she warms us.
This is the last stop on her bus.

 

No Money

I've got no money. No money. You heard
   Me say this in a dream. It's funny.
My gift to you was just a word.

The night we met, my speech was slurred
   By drugs. My outlook wasn't sunny,
And I had no money. No money. You'd heard.

And yet you took me in—not stirred,
   I hope, by just my lack of money.
My gift to you was once a word

Tied to the music of a bird
   Who cheeps in vain for his long-lost honey.
I hadn't any money. No money. You'd heard

From Austen that it's quite absurd
   To marry men who've got no money,
And my gift to you was just a word.

Out of the air a match occurred.
I dreamed it all again. It's funny.
I had no money. No money. You heard.
My gift to you was just a word.

 

 

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