“What are you doing still awake?”
She answered him:
“I love.”
from the Russian of Leonid Martynov
“Are you a Zionist?” they asked,
their faces covered in keffiyehs.
On their chessboard hate was masked.
She stood alone. She had no fear.
“No Zionist can come inside
the library. Go back to Poland.”
“From enemies I won’t hide,”
she told them, stoically. And
she smiled at their virulence.
When they closed in, she clenched her fists
although she already knew
that rancor feeds on ignorance.
They asked, “Are you a Zionist?”
She answered: “Yes, I’m a Jew.”
