Poetry

  • August 30, 2023

Table of Contents

Once I Was Young

The rabbis claim ten plagues, or forty,
two hundred, or more.
I killed a locust myself in the kitchen,
wondering what it meant. Did the locust come
to protect me or am I the one cursed?

We are walking out of Egypt now
and the dough cooked without rising.
Five stacked boxes of matzo sit
on the curb the day after Passover.
No one wants them.

We step through His parted sea
onto dry land and we wander
forty years before seeing the flowers in our garden. 
I sit outside by a lemon tree and I know
I forgot already how many drowned.

My brother stayed behind and we never spoke again.
He said freedom will forsake me
and my children will beg for bread
And now I am old.

I could have stayed with him,
but He cursed me always to roam away, 
on a wild hunt for something less than slavery 
and something more than bread.

The Doorpost

Maybe our souls remember.
I sit at the table in Egypt
and so will my daughters and so will theirs
and so will I, this year, alone.

Maybe it’s my blood that remembers
the blood of a sacrificial lamb
that marks our doorposts, trusting
the Angel of Death will pass us over
and kill someone else.

Nailed to the doorpost now,
a mezuzah tells the heavens who
I was and who I’m supposed to be
but cannot say
Here we are. Protect us.
It doesn’t work that way anymore.

and I wonder if the lamb spoke to God
and demanded to know why
her blood was the cost of so much life.

And none of you shall go out the door
of your house until morning—
so I am waiting for the morning
and I cannot tell if the darkness is from
the night or the Angel.

Movement

But she does not look anything like you.
I catalogue each feature as she stands
My mind doesn’t provide a single clue.

Her face is different from the one I knew
Her hair. Her voice. Her form. My mind expands
to search, but there is nothing quite like you.

Your face. Your smile. Your form. Your laughter too
All move beyond the undiscovered lands
and sit before me, living. Just like you.

She lifts a coffee cup. And now I knew
It all came from the movement of her hands.
She raised a fork and somehow summoned you.

Just like your hands, they moved as yours would do.
Pouring a drink. My mind now understands.
Lifting the water glass. It’s you. It’s you.

And I must gravely question and pursue:
When did I store the memory of your hands?
The years of family meals compounded to
your living far beyond the end of you.

A Life Ruined by the Water Company

They moved the garbage bins five houses down
and uprooted every brick on our street
burying water pipes under the bricks.

No one asked me about moving the trash bins
and no one has told them to move them back.

So is this life now?
Five houses down!
I may never take out the trash again.

And all I can do is sit inside,
With bags piling up, just daring me to keep them
as they fill themselves with the cast-away,

the rejected, the empty canisters
and plastics I need to recycle but

that’s even further away,

the very end of the road,

over a hundred meters.

And I cannot save the world
under these conditions.

Shiva

She sits shiva for herself.
No cleaning. No cooking.
No staring in the mirror.
She is the principle mourner.

Her clothes are ripped. Her hair is dull.
No one knows what to say.
A word here, a touch there, moves her,
but not enough.

In the ground, a modest coffin of pine.
She lays inside, a muslin shroud that covers her skin,
a handful of dirt from her homeland.
Her eyes close and she declines
to breathe, and that’s finally acceptable,
even to God.

Don’t Visit My House in July

And I am sweating like a prophet
I knew he wouldn’t show in a
heat wave he does not have time
to mix with the rabble.

Last year, I told myself I’d wait
another year to call the repairman
Well I tried as hard as I could

That’s not true I gave up after a call three
texts and one near-call a near-call counts
the phone was in my hand

this land suffocates me sometimes

but outside it, I can’t breathe at all

and I run back to bathe in the sweat
as I cry over a land that always
has a broken air conditioner.

He is Famous For Other Things

If miracles defy objective truth,
miracles we say you’re famous for—
you will never be famous for me—
but the spreading of the sea
or a man who survived—
Can’t a miracle speak the truth?

When I was born, I must have gasped,
Delivered to this place you’re famous for—
And when I die, will they search for me—
for the air I breathed and used to be?
If even a part of me survives—
Yes. Miracles lie to themselves all the time.

Instead: a haiku

Instead of being
the woman I want to be
I’m watching Netflix.

Final Conquest

In darkest time, a thousand creatures fly
From here to there, last night, and night before
So angry that the glass would still deny
Their infiltration through the sliding door
But no! Inside, the terror has begun
As single, flying trespasser appears
In ignorance, believes its victory won
Full breach accomplished; champion; tiny cheers
Alas: the micro-conquerer’s boastful tune
This tender-hearted human shall rewrite
For thee, Mosquito, death approaches soon
Enjoy the seconds left in fierce delight
For greatest triumphs do not end as planned
When unimagined giants roam the land

Heartbeat: a haiku

With both ears closed shut
finally I start hearing
my heartbeat again.