Lawrencce R. Smith

ABACUS

Dream accountants use an abacus
to compute night terrors and the grip
of ice around the skull. A chain,
a radius that measures the buried altar
and its edict in three parts, unknown
to any but the bead maker,
with the lovely hands she uses
to weave all our public nightmares.

Waking in bed with a young giraffe, unspotted
and stripped of her fur, is it grief or shame
that makes me turn away?

Lawrence R. Smith edited and published the now retired Calibanonline and its
print parent, Caliban. He is the author of Annie’s Soup Kitchen (U. of Oklahoma
Press, 2003), The Map of Who We Are (U. of Oklahoma Press, 1997), and The Plain
Talk of the Dead (Montparnasse Editions, 1988). He has translated Antonio Porta's
The King of the Storeroom (Wesleyan U. Press, 1992) and, with Michelle Yeh, No
Trace of the Gardener, poems by Yang Mu (Yale U. Press, 1998). He edited and
translated The New Italian Poetry: 1945 to the Present (U. of California Press, 1981)