their pennants a faded rose, like the mist

before his eyes. He slips his hand

lightly in mine, and says Not one of those

suits is really safe. But when we

get to the wide museum steps

railed with gold like the descent from heaven,

he can’t resist,

and before my eyes, down the stairs,

over and over, clutching his delicate

unprotected chest, my son

dies, and dies.

35/10

Brushing out my daughter’s dark

silken hair before the mirror

I see the grey gleaming on my head,

the silver-haired servant behind her. Why is it

just as we begin to go

they begin to arrive, the fold in my neck

clarifying as the fine bones of her

hips sharpen? As my skin shows

its dry pitting, she opens like a small

pale flower on the tip of a cactus;

as my last chances to bear a child

are falling through my body, the duds among them,

her full purse of eggs, round and

firm as hard-boiled yolks, is about

to snap its clasp. I brush her tangled

fragrant hair at bedtime. It’s an old

story—the oldest we have on our planet—

the story of replacement.

The Missing Boy

(for Etan Patz)

Every time we take the bus

my son sees the picture of the missing boy.

He looks at it like a mirror—the dark

blond hair, the pale skin,

the blue eyes, the electric-blue sneakers with

slashes of jagged gold. But of course that

kid is little, only six and a half,

an age when things can happen to you,

when you’re not really safe, and our son is seven,

practically fully grown—why, he would

tower over that kid if they could

find him and bring him right here on this bus and

stand them together. He sways in the silence

wishing for that, the tape on the picture

gleaming over his head, beginning to

melt at the center and curl at the edges as it

ages. At night, when I put him to bed,

my son holds my hand tight

and says he’s sure that kid’s all right,

nothing to worry about, he just

hopes he’s getting the food he likes,

not just any old food, but the food

he likes the most, the food he is used to.

Bread

When my daughter makes bread, a cloud of flour

hangs in the air like pollen. She sifts and

sifts again, the salt and sugar

close as the grain of her skin. She heats the

water to body temperature

with the sausage lard, fragrant as her scalp

the day before hair-wash, and works them together on a

floured board. Her broad palms

bend the paste toward her and the heel of her hand

presses it away, until the dough

begins to snap, glossy and elastic as the

torso bending over it,

this ten-year-old girl, random specks of

yeast in her flesh beginning to heat,