Corona in the countryside II by Agi Mishol

Now that death creeps round
and I’m peeled down  
to a worn-out sweat suit,
down to clumps of cookie crumbs
and afterwards the striped toothpaste
that bursts from the tube

now that on mute
you can hear the wheat growing,
pecans pushing into their shells
and an unseen leaf that also for me
lies still upon the ground

now that they’ve told us to sit at home
I prefer to squeeze inside the “s”
of shelter-in-place,
even just inside a preposition
or the two falling tears
of a single quotation mark, now

as someone, in his dream,
soaps me in the bath with a blue sponge
and the blossoming of citrus fruit
is the indifferent smell-track to the whole scene,
I do as Rilke said:
I let beauty and terror happen to me
without thinking it’s final.