THEFT OF A LINE FROM MONTALE The obstinate news, the turbulence swinging all around its red center, the surge of compassion nailed down hard, the regular ticking of the fall of the starving, of despairing prisoners, of the bullet-heavy innocent-- I don't know enough to prophesy over the static of contention, I don't know out of what Jerusalem of the past or future comes the hour of redeemed imagination, I don't know the possum's trick of lying with her tail in this world and her nose in the other, I don't know if the muffled step in the garden is truly yours, Messenger, or what in the spell of our fiercely possessed night flies up, calling in a few loud notes the capital words we cannot prevent, the shattering of love we held for one another.