The day all of Israel fell asleep,

bald men in the shuk

lowered their heads onto eggs and squash

and snored out spice and

the tourists

dropped their cameras and lined the streets like

new roads made of

backpack to cover old stone

and

little children watching littler children

sharp in their shabbos dresses

laid in the mud and dug their white-tighted knees into the dirt and sighed

and I

sitting in my room

smoking tea and

standing on my head

forgot

about my broken foot

forgot

the time I turned my

stomach toward yours squinted my

eyes and pretended we were dancing

didn’t ask myself

How many seas I’d sail before

I could sleep in the sand

and I curled up to my

blanket with somebody else’s blood on it

and yawned.

Today all of Jerusalem broke silent,

the buses stopped and passengers froze

sirens singing then stopping one by one like electric geese shot down,

but no one was sleeping

only grieving

the fallen soldiers of a country young as me, old as dirt.