One wall in the room on G. Street 
sponges up the morning sun. Mellows it and warms. 
This is the room I go to for repose, 
it holds no dark—none, at least, that harms. 

Years ago, we rented in Jerusalem for the year. 
A dusky ground floor suite with a brambly garden. 
A daughter had stabbed her boyfriend in the kitchen there; 
he succumbed. 

I didn’t learn of the killing 
until after we’d signed the lease. 
Of course, 
we never told the children.  

The drain in the kitchen floor would sometimes 
make a hollow gurgling sound. 
Every so often it belched thick sticky liquid. 
The plumber fixed the gurgle but a groaning tone set in. 

Once I left the children home alone to run some errands; 
returned to find them side-by-side, immobile on the sofa, 
faces pallid—eyes gigantic globes. 
Everything about the picture was wrong. 

As though my stepping out had torn a porthole 
to the shades. 
Errands to the pharmacy and bakery and bank 
signified how poorly I attended to essentials. 

“You went and left us here alone,” 
the older one reproached. 
“There was screaming in the kitchen, very loud, 
like someone dying.” 
                        

The sun shone dull as a bruise, 
the wind soughed 
slyly as an alibi—  
civet-scented, kit and caboodle. 
That’s right. 
	
Quite the animal 
girl I was—enthusiast  
with mice and gerbils, hamsters, turtles, 
fish, a talking budgerigar, a tabby.
Belovèd was my guinea-pig—a small, 
hot-eared albino. 
Despite the way she squealed
and scratched, despite the times 
she bit me 
hard in the neck 
when I held her close. 
I fed her lettuce, vittles, roots, 
she slept on a pine-chip bed. 
To me she was Behemoth of the salt lick. 
She understood the sally: the commitment 
she instilled in me 
to care with special fervor 
for a peevish
pink-eyed pet.  
		A thin white scrim 
developed over her eyes 
one day she ceased to eat. I felt completely 
stunted as she failed. 
Someone, maybe my mother, 
suggested we take her to the vet. 
“Put down your little pig,” he said, 
and took her. 
		
The sun shone angrily that day 
and dull the next 
and next. Then xanthous as a bruise 
when it turns from purple.