He puts on sock garters, gray trousers,
a pressed shirt, a black tie, a vest.
The maid has prepared him a breakfast
which he eats in five minutes. Then, dressed
in an overcoat, gloves, and a hat,
he sets out for the office. The cobbles
are shining (it rained in the night)
as dawn breaks. A bearded man hobbles
down the street, hawking apples and pears.
His belted black kaftan is ragged—
an Ostjude from distant Ukraine,
a sore thumb in front of the jagged
cathedrals and castles of Prague.
Kafka raises his bowler politely,
doesn’t buy anything, hurries past.
The old man’s long beard shivers whitely,
as pale as a funeral pall,
or the tallit katan peeking out
from beneath his patched shirt, like the first
blades of grass growing after a drought.