Category: poetry

—From the testimonies of Judy Abrams, Johnny Jablon, and Michael Kutz              Adult Being ten and small, my task with […]

I never heard my parents recite the Kaddish There were only the squat unlovely candles in plain glass jars set out on memorial holidays —the […]

My Brother has been dead for fifteen years   My brother has been dead for fifteen years. Mom says he was blue-eyed and brilliant for […]

I am Called to the Torah Nothing in my home has ever hurt me, but I have heard the tic tic of the projector as […]

Is Anything too hard for the Lord?                                                             —Genesis, 18:14   Hineni Is that You, God, in the shaking leaves in the changed light […]

Brother                                                                                                  What, you travelled for an hour and waited for another just to see your brother?   We don’t know what it is […]

Letter to the Angels, Poland, 1919 Psalm 74.14—Leviathan appears as multi-headed sea serpent My beard is scraggly      clothes hanging on my skeleton      but             I […]

Undercover The yoga studio on Chicago Ave has a Palestinian flag behind the reception, next to a keffiyeh, next to a cut-out of a watermelon. […]

  “When do I get my arms back?” asks the boy as if they were two toys his mother took from him because they didn’t […]

Peacefully gliding, holding hands we engrave images of hope on black canopies of emptiness throughout the Universe You whisper in my ear: “We may soon […]

at the end of a cobblestoned street under a pale moon waning ocean air swirls under frayed awnings into a dimly lit cafe hum of […]

When the rain stops The western sky is a Carolina blue blotterwater-stained in cobalt, charcoal andegg shell, pierced with shafts ofochre and chrome awaitinggold pots […]

  Eucalypti stand in rowsof leg and bushy haunch,remains of fatted cattle ripped away. Next signs we’ll see are fires lining roads;or missiles spearing land; […]

  Look, it’s not the Kinneretbut the water is blue,and there’s an Israeli flag out frontby the concrete barriers put in placeto prevent a terroristfrom […]

Kafka’s Sister’s Braid During the occupation Ottla divorced her non-Jewish husband to save him and their daughters. Her black eyes and black mouth twisted into […]

Looking For Forests After the vet put Simba down he lent you a shovel dumped the limp body into your arms and told you to […]

The Melon   like inhaling a part of memory I slice into the net-like rind of a perfect melon   two halves separate and fall […]

  Outstretched limbs trail faded, crisp tefillin strips, ushering the rising tongues that seek a fresh bed of ash for every generation   _______   […]

  Forever Shiva   My mother’s mood was for talking and mine, for listening: stories of childhood on Chicago’s old West Side, reiterative: handsome adored […]