WHITE

"Being, like maize grains,
fell" before its ripeness,

letters sprawled on the shawl
of time. By the doors, by the

windows, by the ports and
entryways, by the curls of air

rising from the deep valleys,
a whiteness implacable.

Whiteness over shame, over
compassion, over love.

A grandmother puts a wreath of
daisies over the orphaned child's

grave. It was then that the
third volley of mortars struck.

Renata Treitel is teacher, poet, and translator. Her poetry has appeared in Cimarron Review, Crazy Horse, The Drunken Boat, Archipelago, Nimrod, Words, The Adirondack Review, Absinthe Literary Review, The Cream City Review, and others. As translator she has published two poetry collections from the Spanish and one from the Italian with Sun & Moon Press (now Green Integer) and Xenos Books.