i am sure grandmothers in Gaza and all over the country here were being squeezed out of bed, or at least out of their comfort zone, by frightened children.    Me, I got a rejection from a poetry magazine I was sure would take a poem of mine.  And I sat thinking that no one is going to publish anything by an Israeli poem now, so why should I even try.  and by the time I got to bed, a child came along frightened by a motorcycle that sounded like a  siren, and squeezed in.  Even the amulet didn’t convince her that she was safe.  

in the morning I put on the shirt I bought twenty years ago in Trinity College – it’s a translation from Irish about a monk and his cat – both up at night, the cat chasing mice, and he chasing knowledge – “turning darkness into light” – this shirt, now ragged, will help me get through the day.