See if you can cross before you reach him
sitting there in the exact center of two cubits

the one right distance between himself
and the world, a distance the rabbis must haveargued over for centuries, and now—
voila! He doesn't ask you to notice, doesn't plead or beg,
he just sits and—you can hear it—purrs, a low steady sound
that stokes the rhythm of his rocking. His pants are worn paper
thin at the knees, he's not wearing socks, his shoes, untied, have broken apart
at the soles.
                       And—oh efficiency!—

his hair, his ordinary, sandy brown, parted-in-the-middle hair,
his hair is clean.

Wendy Mnookin

Wendy Mnookin is the author of: What He Took, BOA Editions (Rochester, NY), 2002; and To Get Here, BOA Editions (Rochester, NY), 1999.