Boredom

teaches itself to shuck snap peas

and destem strawberries

single handedly

keeps cruising the Jewish cemetery

hoping to find

the grave of its founding rabbi Haim Pinto

one wandering Hebrew conjuring another

cranes its neck at laundry drying on lines

strung from azure shutters

in the you’ve been warned ad nauseam

just beyond the bus depot

backed up to the sea

forbidden zone

stops to consider

why a gull the size of

holy mother of fill-in-the-blank

would decide to stand atop a

that’s how large you’d imagine

they are

almost half its size one

on the roof of the decorative ceramic depot

stops in currency shops

to note the fluctuation of the Moroccan dirham

against the Chinese yuan and Thai baht

even though it traffics in dollars

lingers to watch those buying

and nibbling

lassoes of strung donuts

fresh from their fatty bath

and shower of talcy sugar

About the Author

In addition to That hum to go by (Mammoth books), Jeff Schiff is the author of Mixed Diction, Burro Heart, The Rats of Patzcuaro, The Homily of Infinitude, and Anywhere in this Country. His work has appeared in more than a hundred publications worldwide, including The Alembic, The Cincinnati Review, Grand Street, The Ohio Review, Poet & Critic, Tulane Review, Tampa Review, The Louisville Review, Tendril, Pembroke Magazine, Carolina Review, Chicago Review, Hawaii Review, Southern Humanities Review, River City (The Pinch), Indiana Review, Willow Springs, and The Southwest Review. He is currently serving as the interim dean of the school of graduate studies at Columbia College Chicago, where he has been on faculty since 1987.