She gives them an assignment,
and immediately they get lost;
her tiredness increases while
she sees their eyes glaze over.
There's probably a law
that governs things like that.
For this they were not taken
from a Berber settlement
and put in a bright reading-nook
beside the guinea pig.
You could still talk to them
at the entrance of the school.
Now they sit on the barren sand,
an emptiness of silence,
in the landscape of the group.
She takes an evening course
so she can quickly learn
the patient speech of stones.
This Babylonian job
requires that too.