You are one, the first number that is the beginning of
Arithmetic and geometry’s starting point
–Solomon ibn Garibol
I spoke to him last night
the killer he grabbed my pillow
tried to suffocate
some word out of me
held on tight
to morning couldn’t believe
I spoke the killer
grass blades between rocks
Sally sells seashells
helicopters arrested
my attention
drawn into shards
Couldn’t stop
him automatic weapons
go off there’s a man
with the middle name
Gregory—no first name basis
a Tree of Life L’Simcha
where the Gregory
inscribed his mark
Squirrel Hill the trunk
ran red they said
the most terrifying
how normal
no tattoos or bumper
stickers to mark him
hating all those other, others
Lin-Manuel Miranda
sang immigrants we
get the job done
like a different Gregor
who walked on broken glass
throughout the 20thcentury
a Kafka man
who felt the long way
around evil
blindfolded
I leave mica schist breadcrumbs a path
so my children and theirs may study
the word he never
got out of me