Safe Room
Translated by Barbara MannNow that death creeps all around
and the pecans are bursting their shells,
I hide within Hebrew.
Nothing will befall me in innocent writing.
Nothing will befall me
if I am absorbed into the letters,
if I don’t go outside the line—
shrunk to a small dot
stuffed inside an O
or into the belly of a C,
a semicolon dripping tears
like a captive.