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 bulldozers
gather up skeletal bodies.
Here I read The Diary of Anne Frank, moon
over Peter. I decide to name my diary
Kitty. I am not yet mortal.
My family travels to Israel. At Yad Vashem,
my glasses snap. With indifferent
yellow tape clattering them together,
I tilt my head and read every
excavated name. Stare at every
monochrome photo.
Here a stone wobbles.
Here a length of silver saws behind barbed wire.
The blank light of the sky.
I walk into a building
at 14 Kopernika Street and hear
pumpkins shatter because I have never
heard bodies. A baby stands
in his mother’s arms. Here cowlicks,
sneers, stripes, ears.
Hour after hour I read.
I believe I am an opposites factory, the just right
magic algorithm that can draw back in
to my body, the uncrematorium, all the slips of ash
caught in the wind, the howl of violins.
~
Wading into the Moon
I saw a woman older than me, a lot older,
in orange shorts and a t-shirt,
a little stain on the shoulder.
As I watched, black lumps became
turtles necks stretched to the June sun.
The crabs crackled so the marsh grasses
looked still and sounded
faster, faster.
She held hands with a frail
white haired woman. Each step
through shallow water. I thought
this will be me,
me and my mother,
at the beach. There will be a moon,
and I will love her.
~
Cooking Dinner in a Small Kitchen at the End of the 20th Century
After I put
my thumb through the side
of the corroded pipe,
my landlord, Wilt, saws it with a hacksaw.
Subletter, I’ve never met
his wide smile before.
I offer lemonade. He accepts. I touch
the ladybug in his silver hair.
It flies out the window.
As I hack at Japanese eggplant,
Wilt on the floor tightens the pipe
still dripping through the threads.
Deep purple skins cling to the pale flesh.
Broccoli, cauliflower, ginger.
Their fresh pungent scent overrides
stale sink water. Wilt sets up
fresh pipes. I see him out.
Steel gleams.
Rice, apricots, almonds all ready to go.
I find this story in a journal.
I have no idea how old I am, what city I am in.
I can feel the sun warm on my shoulders.
The water flows.
________
Deborah Bacharach is the author of Shake & Tremor (Grayson Books, 2021) and After I Stop Lying (Cherry Grove Collections, 2015). Her work has recently appeared in Poetry East, Last Syllable, Only Poems, and Grist among many other journals, and she has received a Pushcart prize honorable mention. She is a poetry reader for SWWIM and Whale Road Review. Find out more about her at DeborahBacharach.com.