Three Poems from Israel

Abstract

POETRY Visit worldlit.org to read another poem by Shahar. 22 WLT SPRING 2021 PHOTO BY K. MITCH HODGE / UNSPLASH Three Poems from Israel by Yudit Shahar Fingertips Can you feel how the tips of my fingers vibrate in a scream? I am a simple woman of autumn, flesh tanned from the end of summer leaves me longing for the first rain. Flowers of delight burst when my daughter’s hand leans into mine, as she toddles with little toes next to me on the pavement. Do you know, we are children of luck, saved from the fall of pain that spread in the world. A new poem pushes its way to me, asking, where do screams blow to? And I push into the poem, say, go, no more delicate words. I want a scream, a scream. On the Day You Came On the day you came to me I stripped off my clothes and drew on my scars: a Madonna lily, rare birds and a lone brown dove. The dove opened her mouth and said “Go” but the lily rushed to burn the flesh and the birds flew away and screamed, rubbing their wings against each other, raining on me and on my eyes purple and gold feathers— on the day you came to me. Turkish Movie At the bar on Rothschild Boulevard at nearly four in the morning the goddess of vengeance ignites radiant blood in a glass of Merlot. A Turkish movie, you said I made for you: I give you tastes of honey candy scented with roses, I lay your head so you can dissolve in tears between rachat lukum breasts, feed you almonds and raisins from the palm of my hand. May your tongue be singed so you will say thank you that you were made by God. *Rachat lukum is “Turkish delight” candy, a soft, gel-like treat. Yudit Shahar grew up on the border of Sh’chunat HaTikvah, “the neighborhood of hope,” in Tel Aviv. She is the author of the prizewinning poetry collections It’s Me Speaking (2009) and Every Street Has Its Own Madwoman (2013) and recently won the prestigious Prime Minister’s Prize in Hebrew Literature for her body of work. Holy Illusion, her third collection, was published in January. Aviya Kushner is the author of The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible (2015), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and the Sami Rohr Prize, and the poetry collection Wolf Lamb Bomb (June 2021). She is The Forward’s language columnist and an associate professor at Columbia College Chicago. Photo by Danielle Aquiline ...