Advice: A Book of Poems

<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">EAST-SIDE: NEW YORK</h2> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse">An old Jew munches an apple,</div> <div class="verse">With conquering immersion</div> <div class="verse">All the thwarted longings of his life</div> <div class="verse">Urge on his determined teeth.</div> <div class="verse">His face is hard and pear-shaped;</div> <div class="verse">His eyes are muddy capitulations;</div> <div class="verse">But his mouth is incongruous.</div> <div class="verse">Softly, slightly distended,</div> <div class="verse">Like that of a whistling girl,</div> <div class="verse">It is ingenuously haunting</div> <div class="verse">And makes the rest of him a soiled, grey background.</div> <div class="verse">Hopes that lie within their grave</div> <div class="verse">Of submissive sternness,</div> <div class="verse">Have spilled their troubled ghosts upon this mouth,</div> <div class="verse">And a tortured belief</div> <div class="verse">Has dwindled into tenderness upon it....</div> <div class="verse">He trudges off behind his push-cart</div> <div class="verse">And the Ghetto walks away with him.</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />