Bureaucracy

 

Adi Wolfson

Translation: Michael R. Burch

 

The "Dead Sea" is drying along the accepted channels

someone dammed the River Jordan's mouth

then tied the streams' joints

and filled the factories pools

and even the sun,

naturally,

is shaving the face of the water.

 

A few years from now, or perhaps longer,

many salt pillars will

stand in our place,

mute reminders that for the sins of Sodom and the crimes

of Jerusalem's clerks there will be no answer.