Moon Prayer

The silver ring of the moon sits in the star-dimpled sky,
a steady, whispering watcher of years,
waxing and waning, and changing, changing-
but always the same silver moon in the sky,
unblinking its cool, moon-silvery eye.
And we blink back our tears
as the years go by.

Mother and Son

After months of running away, my baby came home
smelling of sickness and vomit. Gently, I led him to the bath,
turned on the faucet, held his hand under the tap.
Too hot, and his eyes, ringed with red, gushed
redder, stinging, looking like he’d been slapped

by me. Baby, baby, where have you been?
Looking away, I undid a button, a zipper. His foot got stuck
in the leg of his pants. Take your sneakers off first,
I whispered. He held onto my shoulder for balance,
almost collapsed. Sat down on the toilet

and lifted his arms. I tenderly pulled up his shirt,
tried not to look, but saw his rib cage. And veins.
And fresh needle marks. Helped him into the tub,
turned off the tap, scared he would drown.
Took his hand in mine and opened it up,

placed the soap on his palm. It fell out
so I picked it up. Methodically washed his dark,
gritty skin, wanting to get rid of the dirt,
the pain. Washed over his arms, trying not to see.
Cleaning his cracked, splintered nails, I broke one

and he jumped. Sign of life. I remembered
a long time ago, he used to be small, and I
would wash his soft baby skin with soap that smelled
of lilies of the valley. He used to splash. Used to laugh.
And look at me in the eyes. Now his head hung limp, waiting

to fall off. Baby, baby, what happened to you?
I turned the soap into pumice, trying to scrape away
the stink of decay, but he clung to it
and it wouldn’t come off. I scrubbed his back,
his neck, his pustular toes. When I washed his chest

I could feel his heart pounding. Sign of life.
I ran my hands through his hair. Strands of grease.
Gingerly massaging his scalp, I picked out
half a band aid. Threw it in the trash and slammed
the lid shut. Then I picked him up from under his arms

and helped him out of the bath. He was shivering,
a mass of jelly. Wrapped him tight in a towel.
Touched my lips to his forehead and he was on fire.
He tried to swallow an aspirin, but threw it up. I dressed him
with fresh clothes and led him to his old room. He slept

like a baby. The next morning I woke up
and there was no sign of life. Baby, baby,
where did you go, why did you leave?
I sniffed at the air, thought I detected a faint trace of lilies,
but it was only the sweet smell of vomit.

Hemingway’s Bride

I met him that long-ago day in Marseille. He wore
his bravado on his handsome face, swaggered up to me,
cigar in place, projecting an aura of masculine
grace, boasting a case of beer and a powder keg;

preparing for war, front lines, he said.
He was hit in the leg. But that was better than dead.
Beside the hospital bed, I patted his back
as he retched and he bled, incoherently begged,

that when he was all better, we would move on
together, together as one, and of course I said
yes, why I would feel truly blessed to be your wife,
your lover, dutiful mother of the children we’ll have.

And so it was done. We married in France, my heart
set on romance, he turned off the light, took off
his pants, I said, it’s okay Hem, you’re not fully well.
He said, go to hell, and left in a huff.

Next morning he cried, apologized for
the stuff he had said, last night in bed, it was just
words, words, just nerves, nerves, but enough was enough.
Never opened up again after that, said talking of feelings

was feminine crap. He preferred to chat about bullfights,
boxing and gore. What a bore. He went out to parties
discussing the war. Drinking martinis he damned Mussolini
with Sherwood and Pound, then he’d quiet down

and go to his favorite café in the square,
and write about war as if he was still there, heroic
and bloody all over again, drowning in gin,
and cognac and wine. He was out all the time,

with Gertrude Stein, imposing and stoic, I thought they were
brothers. Gerty taught Hem and the others to write,
but they couldn’t write like him, or fight like him,
F. Scott Fitzgerald had nothing on him. Hem made sure I knew

that Fitz was a sniveling, brown-nosing Jew. And a faggot,
too. Homophobic nut. When he heard that Gatsby
was topping the charts, he coughed up a gut, stayed in bed
for a month. I lived life as normal, he called me a slut.

So I went to Fitzgerald and took him to bed. I’ll never forget
the precise hue of red that Hem turned when I said
that Fitz did it better than he ever did. Priceless!
Livid, Hem came after me with his fists,

ticklish, I laughed. Breathing fire, incensed, he swung
and he missed. I collapsed into fits
at his stark impotence, even when he hauled me
out of the house by my hair, threw me on my ass,

I bounced and I laughed. Then I left France,
and never looked back. Till thirty years I heard
of his death, had to return to see what was left
of the man who had hated that feminine crap,

who claimed he was brimming with life
and with vigor. I wasn’t surprised one bit when I learned,
that he was the one who pulled on the trigger
that blasted the bullet deep into his brain.

Villanelles

Ghost

remembering all you’ve done, you’ve said,
your everything imprinted on my heart-
these thoughts they just won’t leave my head

though I’m still young, with years ahead,
my everything, it’s torn apart
remembering all you’ve done, you’ve said

awake at night, you’re in my bed,
your warmth, your smell, just won’t depart,
these thoughts they just won’t leave my head

the tears, the tears, the tears I’ve shed,
the soggy gasps at a fresh start-
remembering all you’ve done, you’ve said

I’ve tried warm milk and pills instead
and therapy, state of the art-
these thoughts they just won’t leave my head

and all the years that you’ve been dead
I’ve done my part, I’ve mourned my part,
remembering all you’ve done, you’ve said
these thoughts they just won’t leave my head.

Love Song

Jerusalem, if I forget you, let my right hand be forgot,
let me wither up and die and run my eyes until they’re dry,
and oh Jerusalem, I’ll cry- for everything you’re not.

Cross-continental, we were bound by an unintelligible knot
I came to be with you, Jerusalem, unable fully to say why
Jerusalem, if I forget you, let my right hand be forgot.

I gave up everything I had, I gave you everything I’ve got
family, friends, money, heart- at the airport we waved goodbye-
and oh Jerusalem, I’ll cry- for everything you’re not.

Strange in a strange land- and strangers they abound a lot
still sometimes struck by the sensation am yisrael chai
Jerusalem, if I forget you, let my right hand be forgot.

Even as I walk the streets and smell the cat decay and rot,
in certain light you’re beautiful- I cannot lie, I can’t deny-
and oh Jerusalem, I’ll cry- for everything you’re not.

Jerusalem, you know I tried, you know I gave you my best shot,
and though you’re eating me alive- I won’t die! But oh, I’ll cry
Jerusalem, if I forget you, let my right hand be forgot.
But oh Jerusalem, I’ll cry- for everything you’re not.

Leah

Nod once. Cough twice.
Those were the signs
to make me Jacob’s wife.
Under the canopy,
Rachel coached me from behind,
tug your ear once. Tap your foot twice.

Under the covers that night,
I subdued my delight
into Rachel’s soft, delicate sighs.
In the morning, awoke to
Jacob’s anguished moan of surprise.
Rachel, Rachel, he cried.

He married her that night.
Rachel, radiant under the canopy-
no opaque veil of white this time.

After the wedding, I slept in the guest bed
while Jacob slept with his new wife.

I could hear him from the other room,
whispering, I love you.
I swooned
and cried myself to sleep.

The next day,
we worked out a deal,
Rachel and I.
We split the time.
First half of the month,
Jacob was mine.
Second half, he’d sleep in her bed.

The nights that they were together,
I died.
Cried.
My eyes took on a permanent shine
from the tears,
and although I tried
all the antidotes in the book-
cucumbers, cream, chamomile tea-
nothing worked.

What else could I do?
I gave birth.
One, two, three.
I’m a baby making machine.
Maybe now my husband
will love me.

Not yet.
Four.

Now we’re at war.
Rachel’s maid Bilhah gave birth
to two sons.

No matter.
I've got seven, eight.
Ain’t life great?

A daughter came next.
Dinah.
She looked like her father.

He adored the children,
and I raised them well.
I taught them to read, to count, to spell,
and when Jacob reviewed
with them at night,
they excelled. He smiled at me.
Warmly. Softly. Platonically.

It was time for a change.
I took up exercise.
Lost weight. Went on a shopping spree.
Stopped crying at night.
My swollen eyes healed.
The redness reduced,
I looked fabulous.

Jacob didn’t notice.
What could be worse?

Rachel gave birth.
A son.
The way her eyes shone,
she looked like an angel.
Joseph, Joseph, she cooed.
Jacob’s favorite.

I decided it was time to move,
time to leave home.
Rachel agreed.
She didn’t have a disagreeable
bone in her body.
Jacob told our father,
impressed upon him our need
to go.
Despite Dad’s protests, his requests
to stay, we packed our bags and left.

Dad chased after us.
Someone has stolen my statues,
he claimed.
Ridiculous, preposterous, Jacob said.
Searchmy whole camp- you'll not
find a thing.
What’s more, I declare that whoever
has robbed you
should die an early death!

Of course, nothing was found.
What would any of us do
with father’s statues?

We continued on our way,
one master,
four wives,
eleven sons,
one girl,
servants too many to count,
and sheep, goats, ewes,
not to mention our jewels.
We were pretty well-off.
How could I complain?

Second half of the month.
Rachel became pregnant.

And when she lay on the dirt
on the road to Bethlehem,
screaming her head off,
tears streaming from her
angelic, deep-set eyes,
pushing the child out,
she died.

I went through her things.
Found a silver ring
with an inscription inside,
To Rachel, my darling, beloved wife,
Jacob.

Another surprise: under the saddle
of her horse, I found Dad’s statues.
What do you know?
Perfect Rachel stole, and Jacob killed his darling, beloved wife.

I didn’t tell.

We buried her in a plot,
in a cave where travelers could stop
and pray.
Jacob stood by her grave,
newborn child in hand-
Benjamin- mother’s bane.
And as I stood next to my husband
mourning his dead wife,
I stared at the newly dug hole in the ground
and wished it was mine.

nesting rhyme poem assignment

please don't think I'd ever write something like this if it was not for an assignment. although i do like the rhythm. its the content in which i don't know what the hell i'm talking about.


gradually I disappear
as sky darkens, stars appear
you, trying to hold on, whisper softly in my ear

stay, stay, we can go anywhere.
and your words tiptoe tempting through my hair
and my prickly skin remembers in the heartless starlit air

I am despair
don’t say I’m not, spare
me your hollow whispers that hang heartless in the air

you, you unaware
of everything I am, of all the masks I wear
let me fade, let me fade into your cold, cruel night air

quite a scare?
didn’t think I could. and now you care
and now your touch is empty, and I as empty as air.

so you see, I disappear
you’ve only ever seen things as you like them to appear
so now you see, I am no more, you’ve nothing left to whisper in my ear

Winter

I’ve tired of this place. The days are short,
the nights are cold, I’m cold
all night and daytime too.

It didn’t used to be this way. Months ago
the skies were warm with
promise and the sun beat stronger than
it ever did in New York, beat down on me to match
the rate of my own heart.

I don’t know what happened. I don’t know
when things turned cold. I know
that the sun is the heart of Jerusalem;
in winter I exist on defibrillation.

Jerusalemites don’t know how to deal
with winter. They close the roads for two inches of snow.
I don’t know how to deal with this cold
light that burns instead of warms,
this "they" and "I" that have lodged themselves
in my throat.

Winter turns the buildings
rat gray, the color of New York
snow. I miss the summer sun that cast
the stone to gold.

I miss the thought that Jerusalem is home.

Canarsie 1984-1996

I drove through my
childhood yesterday

-what a dump-

passed the old redwood shul that was
set on fire
behind the black wire gate I saw
my shadow playing with its eight year old friends
running back and forth
while the grownups prayed-
tag, you’re it!
and down the block was
unknown because I couldn’t walk
alone (now I know- Ralph Avenue
is not for kids)

before the smoke
there was Kosher City and
Jerusalem Pizza and Noam’s
Judaica- and we did tashlich
by the sewers-they smelled
but it was only once a year

(when we moved out to Jersey
Staten Island stuffed our noses everyday)

Canarsie stopped when we left
I think it may not even exist now
except that I drove through
yesterday-like seeing
a childhood friend
aged and shriveled-
Canarsie
the name rolls off my lips,
ends in a hiss,
like redwoods crackling
and fizzling in the smoke.

My Jerusalem

City of Music, City of Poetry. Lucky me, I can hear the rhythms and rhyme schemes of the streets: the hip-hop, hip-hop of little girls jumping rope- Anna Banana reinvented in Hebrew- the vibrations of clotheslines, plucked by windfingers like guitar strings- heartstrings- the huff and puff of buses as they twist and turn and squeeze through all-too-narrow-city-streets, the Halleluyah chorus that erupts every time a kid gets up and gives his seat to someone with a beard, white hair or injury.

The marketplace cacophony: fish breathing their last breaths before their heads are chopped off on the block, waiting to be served up for Shabbat, the twisting tango of shopkeepers and shoppers haggling over specks of dirt, the soprano beep-beep-beep of metal detectors protecting the unsuspecting, but always suspecting, people.

The foreign tunes of foreign tongues: Hebrew’s suntanned brazenness, Russian’s babushkaed proletariat ethic, French’s bereted elegance, Amharic’s dreadlocked click-clack-clack, Yiddish’s yellow-starred oifn pripitchiks, English’s bare-headed chit-chat-chat, Arabic’s kafiyahed snarl.

The dark drumbeat of impending doom cracks through nerves like fireworks. Explosions thunder in the sky, rainstorming fragments of life over heads of little children, getting caught and tangled in their hair.

The bravado of teenagers ringing through the air: "Let's go to Ben-Yehuda tonight- it will be the bomb!"
The cadences: volunteers picking up the mess, the human flesh strewn across the streets.

The choking sobs, the choking smoke of prayers caught in people’s throats, the Kotel packed and God’s ears open. In the nearby distance, the mosque belts out its call- a dirge- and mothers, fathers, sons and daughters cry on the cold stones.

The forward march called Life Goes On: preparations for Shabbat. Hope wafting through the air on whiffs of challah, cholent, potato kugel, running through the tap water and flavoring the chicken soup, sticking to the soles of shoes as fathers and sons walk to shul.

I can hear their footsteps in the streets, a steady, ever-present beat, melding with the poetry that David hummed when he walked up and down the soft hills of Jerusalem, the battle hymns and psalms that the land was built upon, a conglomerate of tunes and melodies, coexisting in Jerusalem’s grand, bittersweet symphony.

THE SHUK

I. Never Pay Asking Price
So I’m making guacamole, because I can,
which really means because I bought an avocado
in the shuk for two and a half shekels. But I can’t break
this bargain fruit open until
assured it won’t go brown.
I need a lemon.
So I head out to the shuk, a woman
on a mission. The first fruit stand I see,
nada. This particular shmoe
doesn’t sell lemons. Moving on,
jackpot. I take
my time pretending I know
how to pick a good lemon. Finally place one in the
translucent plastic bag that comes also
in yellow, pink or blue, and wave my arm
under the guy’s nose. He weighs it, grunts,
fifteen shekels.
I feel myself asphyxiating on the citrus air around me
and the flies are closing in and I think I may need to sit down-
until I grab control of myself- I’m nobody’s sucker!- and seize
the opportunity to practice
my Hebrew with a key phrase my friend taught me
for just such situations.
In my most indignant tone I spit, Ma, ani frayarit?
and storm away, lemonless.

Turns out, my friend tells me later,
there’s been a lemon shortage the whole year.

II. Drink Lots of Water
I’m walking through the shuk when I’m hit
with this craving for diet coke. (I have a diet-coke-
drinking problem.) The first store I see is
a liquor store, so I pop in for a six-shekel
fix. (Liquor stores here
follow the mentality that alcoholic
content or not, drinks are drinks.)
Forgetting of course, that this was the store
I had been to last week to buy wine
for a Shabbat meal. The clerk was slimy, like
the dead fish juice spilled all over the shuk floor.
Motek, he said, kamah yafah at. Yesh lach chaver?
Sorry, I don’t speak Hebrew.
It’s true, my Hebrew isn’t perfect, but I understood him
perfectly. Now, I see the same slick head of gel, his eyes
fall on me and he cries, Hallo, hallo, motek!
About-face.

That’s one way to kill an addiction.

III. Money is Worthless Here
On the way home from work, I find myself gripped
by a desire to be healthy, so I stop by a random
fruit/vegetable stand and pick out two sweet
potatoes, two apples, two cucumbers and an onion.
I’m only one person, but I need to eat too.
Take my goods to the register,
seven shekels. Beautiful.
Take a fifty out of my Anne Klein wallet,
hand it over.
Ma zeh? the clerk asks.
Money. What does he think it is?
Small money you don’t have?
No. If I had it, I’d give it to him.
Ach, get out, go, go, no big money here!

I’ve never actually been thrown out of a store
for trying to pay.