Here is what
I’ve
learned in Israel.
1 Your happiness should come first.
1.5 If you know what will make
you happy, you’re probably wrong.
2 Do not judge a people by its extremists.
(and I’m
beginning to think
that everything has its function Even
terrorism, even
intolerance, and the
world is complete, in all
its horror and its magic.
these things
keep me up at night)
3 Don’t write poetry if you think in prose.
4 do not belittle belief,
there is beauty
in a person
who can believe in Infinity
5 do not belittle belief
there is tremendous beauty
in a person
who can believe in Infinity
6 do not belittle belief,
there is tremendous beauty
in something so finite
that can believe in Infinite Love.

Sitting on the bus
my Israeli Paul Revere seminary nightmare steps on
armed in pantyhose, eyes stretched
wide by a thick black headband
Dense Brooklyn accent, perfect Hebrew.
Laughing on the phone, she
tells the details of the most recent terrorist attack,
a family of five murdered in their home,
a baby stabbed in its cradle
She said she’s just come from the memorial in Jerusalem,
where hundreds of Israelis stood in the streets sobbing and
screaming for vengeance
A sea of black hats, writhing and angry
She said they showed everyone
pictures of the bodies,
so they would know the horror of what happened
And as she sat there smiling, broadcasting the news like
a recount of a primetime television episode,
I sat
on the verge of tears
and watched the rest of the bus sit stony-faced,
distracted and desensitized.
We drive through
a market place.
An
old woman gets on clutching
a challah swaddled in plastic, sleeping salty.
(The bus is full off babies,
but none of them are crying.)
Meanwhile, in Gaza
the murders had another crowd
of people filling the streets,
dancing.

Walking through Venice last night, channels

spilling over in the storm, flooding alleys

we walked on raised platforms, arthritic

wooden tables laid across the stones

Your head brushing against hanging lights,

burning shadows into your face

and we were like

the eyeless venetian masks lined in glitter,

your not-eyes tied with fringe to mine,

a glass of wine you hated

and an ocean in my borrowed boot later.

And I kept thinking that the birds

were drowning in their stone nooks while

that man, full of wine, danced barefoot in

the misplaced river and laughed steam

through the gaps in his teeth.

the  little boy on the

63 back to givatayim

who stepped on my foot

and smiled at me

reminded me

of you:

uninvited,

lovely.

I thought I saw my sister
outside the window,
carrying Tel Aviv in her mouth.
Making a bracha with her teeth,
grinding poems and hair,
her jaw opened up and showed the world
boiling behind her molars.
My Vishnu sister, made of words, needing none.
Little and towheaded I’used to pick hair after hair from
my scalp to see what I thought
was a piece of brain at the end.
Sitting in the backyard,
eating fistfuls of grass, ripping bundles of yellow
What you feel is
irrelevant, but
What you taste is
holy
shabbos kodesh
salty mouth dirt
sister mother
yellow tufts of mind

Sister, scrawling

eyeliner poems and dust gospels on the bathroom floor

(I spend a lot of time here lately)

prying my teeth open, counting the days on my toes

retching up cinders, talking to the dog.

_

Congratulations on the rain,

I heard somewhere

that you really needed it.

You were hardly poetry today.

You were

something closer to prose, punctuated,

unrelenting, toothless. We

were singing in the car

and I knew the lyrics better than you

So you sang a second behind, it was

like the half

whispered echo of the half

of the congregation that doesn’t know Hebrew

but recognizes the melody (rhythmic

if uneven)

you are present if not sure

(your arms,

like my arms,

like a long day, like cold cotton sheets)

You’re the time I

wrapped myself in Christmas lights,

stared at my arms cradled in white light,

unplugged them, crawled into bed,

and saw the night sky.