cambridge book review

A.M.

Elli Hazit

A distracting influence
with good manners
Gazing at a tree’s width,
its bare tendrils of branches
There’s no compensation for misbehavior
We are insatiable
Nights of release are
glossed over in the grooming
and accessories
of a prepared countenance
and competence
Worries come unbeaded and fall
rippling around on the floor
Clothes are heaped on chairs, the bed
and the door is closed discreetly
on the private mess
where strangers are unwelcome
There’s a reluctance to organize
the day’s thoughts
much less pathways to order
only to be undone by haste
and misgiving
She rises,
all this in mind

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Elli Hazit was born in San Francisco in 1960. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her master’s degree from Boston University. Hazit lived in Paris, France from 1983 to 1997. Her writing has been published in the International Herald Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Cambridge News. She has also produced radio programs for WORT-FM, Madison. One of her stories, “The Tangerines and the Dogs,” was broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service Programme.

June 15, 2011 Posted by cambridge book review | poetry | A.M., Eleven Poems: An Audio Chapbook, Elli Hazit | Leave a comment