A Small Treatise on Analogy

Janusz Szuber

In the car, before the synagogue in Lesko,

Waiting for Madame M.R.,

I watched a trapped bee trying

To force the slanted windshield,

Its efforts composing a simple

Parable about existence.

I picked up the notebook in which I'm

Now recording this incident, and with its help

I directed the insect toward the slightly open door,

Halfway believing that one day

Someone will treat me the same way.

From they carry a promise, selected poems,

Alfred A. Knopf, 2009