Cargo

          For Rachel Hadas

Old wounds leave good hollows

Where one who goes can hold

Himself in ghostly embraces

Of former powers and graces

Whose domain no strife mars—

I am made whole by my scars

For whatever now displaces

Follows all that once was

And without loss stows

Me into my own spaces

Samuel Menashe

From The Niche Narrows: New
and Selected Poems, Talisman
House, Publishers, © 2000.
Reprinted by permission of the
author.