My Wild Children

Yehuda Amichai

My wild children: in the morning

they eat my dreams, at evening

they wolf down my memories.

I am their manger.

I feel their rough tongues

on my soul.

I hear their sweet and empty slurping

day and night.

My wild children, my barracudas

sopping up my madness, muting my scream.

I dig into them.

I want to light my eyes

from their eyes,

as on a dark nocturnal street

a man asks for a light

for his last cigarette.