We had thirty seconds to charge the nipple.
It was a mound
jutting at the edge of the obstacle course in basic training.
Above it, the sky's collar was ironed with the starch of clouds
and the khaki of its dunes could be, in a different landscape, a line in a nature poem.
But where is a line and where is nature,
when two canteens bounce on your waist,
a Uzi in your hand,
and a shovel along your spine.
All you could do was to feast in fantasy on the nipples
of the squadron's clerk who always lounged
in the commander's jeep,
and to recall the painter Gauguin debating whether to eat the chicken
he had, or to paint it.
There, facing the hill, we were very hungry.



translated, from the Hebrew, by Tsipi Keller