Hot Arteries
Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner

In the hospital called Meir,
four floors high, at the hour of
three in the afternoon, my father writhes
with the pain of his attacking heart.  Downstairs,
at the entrance to the elevator, a shapely
nurse dies of laughter
in an attack brought on by the flattery
of a young doctor dressed in the blood
of his old patients slowly approaching
the end of their days.  But even at night my father
does not rest from watching over
the land below him, over her dusty
roads that are hot and red
like the arteries of a man looking at his son,
hearing the flutter of the young blood
in his veins, not daring to say
what now so needs
to be heard.
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Beyond Saida
To Yael

Beyond even Sidon your image
drowns in a sea of memory:
blue like it, damp, salty,
cradling me, rocking,
set on a shore flooded with longing. 
I kneel on the soft sand
and lift from my pack
the bounty of your busy hands:
the rustle of the plastic bag,
the heavy sour smell,
the labeled sandwiches:  "Salami", "Cheese".
And crouching, lower than the horizon,
I lean, mutter, unfasten,
remove, chew, remember, smell.
And suddenly I wallow
in the warm sand:
kissing your fingerprints.

 

Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner

 

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