‘Two Below Zero’ and other poems

Studies in Translation    

Then we’re arriving,
and the headlights flare
off sudden pouncing houses,
a side of something
in the butcher’s window, a cat’s
one frozen eye. Pulled up, the car
ticks like a suspect device,
filling the silent street
with hazard lights.

Cracked open, our home-
from-home breathes out
aromas of moth-balled naves
and vaults. Then the bags
are barely down, and the place
is blaring, spitting
...