Peanuts

Three Epigrams

Camera Obscura

Who can retrieve from fallen spray

or guess from altered sand or air

the wave just past, caught in the eye—

vanished but still unfurling there?

Little Lament

It would be strange that I am sad,

were I a stranger in your bed.

But since I am familiar here,

yet seem a stranger in your bed,

it is not strange that I am sad.


My Love Is Like a Camel

My love is like a camel:

she rations wet delights.

One hump she needs to travel

through six long desert nights.

The seventh brings oasis—

tall palm and grassy hill.

When we come to refresh us,

oh then she drinks her fill!

Jan Schreiber

From Wily Apparitions, Cummington Press,
© 1992.  Reprinted by permission of the author.