Opposite me – at this table –
an elderly couple bend over
their equal servings to mine
[chicken & assorted salads]
We wear similar work shirts
Steel dishes chime cutlery’s
made scrapes & complaints
& return me – by breath – to
school time & a lunch hour –
cooled on a tray / There are
no records of my [misspent]
fretted lessons served there
[my certificates were defiled]
It is easy for me to retreat to
my childhood – to wait inline
Sat in this kibbutz dining hall
[playing too easily in history]
I diminish my grades – lo tov
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