TWO POEMS

...TWO POEMS Chana Dloch Disquisition One day I dared to put the O back in G-d I watched Him bulge to God paunchy respectable and sad I brooded about my heresy until I guessed that God who loves the circle best only to find our angularity might after all not mind He'd take it to heart perhaps if I chose to drop the caps O that fine round O fleshed out from the scrawny spine of a minus sign Or would he object that O was zero taking Him in vain...

...She was last year's recipient of the Poetry Center's Discovery Award...

...God knows an O is an O is an O and slyly checks our tic-tac-toe with His wry X The Man from Prudential Here he comes again with his oracular proofs from another world wiping his dark wings on my doormat telling me how we must die He has the numbers how many people will die of whatever you name who by fire and who by water who by the sword and who But Job got it all back again he wants to say with his hard pink face He's driving some bargain I don't know the terms of that tempter, that swindler as if he could banish the fear we breathe As if life were anything but these wrinkled shoes that are my own Chana Bloch, a poet and translator, teaches English Literature at Mi I Is Col lege in Oakland, California...