• Make a fence
• Jessica Jacobs (bio)

said the rabbis, around the Torah. And this worldis lousy with them. More than we can counton our dog walk alone: chainlink and stone and white

wooden pickets. Fences to keep people's bad barking dogsin, to keep our bad barking dog out. His nostrils flaringwide as a twirled skirt as he reads the tales of past passersby

on fences that mark what is another's burden, another'sprivilege to tend, and what is open to the traffic of strangers.Called before the Torah, a reader tracks the cramped letters

with a yad, a metal pointer topped by a tiny pointing hand.If it feels colder than the air, it's because silver stealsyour body's heat, this tool to keep your place, to keep you

in your place, to keep you from marring even a single sacred letter.This, one fence among many: Do not bring the Torahin the bathroom, do not sit beside it on a bench, do not stand before it

naked (lest you be buried naked, stripped of all the good you did).But sometimes barriers grow so large it's hard to seewhat they're protecting. And here is the fig tree yearning

past its yard, reaching toward the walk with its fat-fingered leaves.Here, the arbor propping branches slumped as the shouldersof a weary giant—yet under its hunch, an exuberance of mulberries.

There, the yellow house whose bramble is more than worth its thorns:rops of ink dripping from the branches, the blackberries call usto make a quill of our tongues. Let every fence in my mind have a gate.

One with an easy latch and well-oiled hinges. Our neighborsurge us to indulge—There's more than we can possibly eat—sohere, love, is fruit with the sun still inside it. Let me

thumb the juice from your chin. Let us honor what we love by taking it in. [End Page 161]

jessica jacobs is the author of Take Me with You, Wherever You're Going, winner of the Devil's Kitchen and Goldie Awards, and Pelvis with Distance, winner of the New Mexico Book Award. Chapbook editor for Beloit Poetry Journal, she coauthored Write It! 100 Poetry Prompts to Inspire with her wife, Nickole Brown.

• 做一个栅栏
• 杰西卡·雅各布斯（生物）

拉比们在托拉周围说。而这个世界对他们来说很糟糕。我们不能依靠我们的狗独自行走：链条、石头和白色

木桩。围栏把人们的坏吠狗挡在里面，把我们的坏吠狗挡在外面。当他读着过往路人的故事时，他的鼻孔像一条旋转的裙子一样张开

在栅栏上标记什么是另一个人的负担，另一个人的特权，以及对陌生人开放的交通。在托拉之前被召唤，一位读者追踪狭窄的字母

带有 yad，一个金属指针，顶部有一只小指针。如果感觉比空气还冷，那是因为银会偷走你身体的热量，这个工具可以保住你的位置，保住你

在你的位置上，以防止你损坏甚至一个神圣的字母。这是众多围栏中的一个：不要将《摩西五经》带到浴室，不要坐在它旁边的长凳上，不要站在它面前

赤身裸体（免得你被赤身埋葬，你所做的一切好事都被剥夺了）。但有时障碍变得如此之大，以至于很难看出它们在保护什么。这是无花果树的向往

走过它的院子，伸向长满指尖的叶子的人行道。在这里，支撑着乔木的树枝像一个疲惫的巨人的肩膀一样倒下——但在它的预感之下，却是茂盛的桑葚。

在那里，黄房子的荆棘胜过它的荆棘：从树枝上滴下的墨滴，黑莓叫我们用舌头做羽毛笔。让我心中的每一道篱笆都有一道门。

一种带有简单的闩锁和润滑良好的铰链。我们的邻居督促我们indulge-还有更多比我们都不可能吃-所以，在这里，爱，是水果与太阳还在里面呢。让我

用拇指从下巴挤出汁液。让我们接受我们所爱的事物。[第 161 页结束]

杰西卡·雅各布斯是《带我与你同行》的作者，无论你要去哪里，魔鬼厨房和戈尔迪奖的获得者，以及距离骨盆，新墨西哥图书奖的获得者。Beloit Poetry Journal 的Chapbook 编辑，她与人合着了Write It！100 首诗歌提示与她的妻子尼克尔·布朗一起激发灵感。