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I could be you could be me.
Washing my body privately in the shower
feeling safe and protected/violated and
ripped apart.
I could be you could be me, cooing
my baby to sleep in a safe and protective collective settlement/butchered, beheaded bleeding corpses piled up
in sacred living spaces.
“Are you still going?”
Asked by a friend as I pack my bags
For a trip that’s been promised a year and a day
A trip long discussed
And oh so desperately needed
“Are you still going?”
In light of recent current events, and ongoing ones
Because to go is crazy
It’s not safe, it’s not the right time
Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey out of Egypt.
But how could we forget?
Weak, starving, insecure, unprotected
Parched, dehydrated, thirsty
For water, yes – and so much more
Traveling across the desert
Barren wasteland filled with nothing
Praise the fallen world
and its dreamy terrors.
Praise the false certainty
of unflickering leaders
and their certain masses.
No one knows better.
My cravings crave solitude.
My cravings crave space
It is too early and too late to dream.
My sister-God braids my hair for
it has grown since the mirrors wore black.
It is too early to die, too late to be born.
I have carrots to chop, soup to cook, a child to read to.
The soup tastes weak; it is mixed with lost time.
Uncle Yosele, may you rest peacefully
outside Tel Aviv in the makeshift hospital
where cousin Bati watches over you.
She told me how you hid under a car
for two days without water,
how you saw your son Ron massacred
holding the hand of his daughter, Sarah.