Lawyerly poet distilling
love and music from
inspiration, poeming
like a paralegal, a Kafka-
bureaucrat. Result: his
testimony, his witness
borne of Nuremberg —
blood in the South, in
Babi Yar — sit like bricks
on bookshelves, suitable
for libraries and court-
houses. And yet he wrote
a poem about a stray dog
who bonded with him,
rushed across a busy high-
way just to be with him,
and the poet’s poet re-
solved to keep him, even
buying him two burgers
at a fair. He lurched between
cold hard facts and a love
poem for a canine; no wonder
he self-published. Small price
to pay for writing what you like.