Landing

 

one spoon

for Mommy one spoon

for Daddy a spoonful

for Granny one spoon for my sis

here comes the airplane

and when it landed I had

no one left

 

Translated by Hana Nestieva

 

Length

 

Our family tree has

not grown many branches.

Flocks of single

women

sat on them

like on narrow

single beds.

 

Aunt Anna and Aunt Leah

picked apples

to stuff strudel.

The dough that swelled

and swelled in the nights

they rolled down the length

and width of their loneliness.

Crumbs of the days were scattered

among the birds.

 

Translated by Irit Sela

 

Such Big Eyes

 

Knock-knock knock-knock

like through a peephole

I gazed

at my mother's letter, saying

grandmother had died.

 

Who's there? Who's there?

 

I lived in a place

with no forests,

no hunters,

I never knew death

before.

 

The envelopes that came

afterwards

I opened like the wolf's belly:

expecting

a happy ending.

 

Translated by Irit Sela

 

Stuttering

 

Slowly

like a film

promo

the days trudged by.

 

Popsicles didn't melt

in winter.

“How old are you, little girl?”

Age froze too,

glued to the lips,

itself mumbling

ahead of me.

 

With a tongue stuck out

to a future as far as the way

from school

I captured snowflakes.

 

I stuttered .

Half-words peeped out

like gloves from a coat pocket.

So with exposed palms

I held onto happiness

unable to explain

why it was good.

 

Translated by Irit Sela

 

I didn’t believe

 

the medical clown

who pointed to my hair

sticking up,

“You’re funnier than I am,”

he smiled.

 

The next morning

a smiley sticker

still winked from the sheet

which covered my father’s face

like the time he played

hide and seek with me.

 

Red nose,

miss-matched socks –

I entered the big

shoes of death.

 

Translated by Linda Zisquit

 

 

 

Key

 

I straighten out my mother

attach her to the backrest

fold her hands

place them on the table.

Lift her head

turn it to me

tie the bib.

 

The spoon knocks on her teeth

like a key

I once turned inside a toy

and didn’t understand

how it suddenly moved

why it suddenly stopped.

 

Translated by Linda Zisquit

 

Inheritance

 

I didn’t know how to cook.

My older sister left me

the birthright just like that,

she went.

 

Her children came to live with us,

the pot widened.

Its handles became farther from each other

and my sister from me.

The potatoes in it grew heavy.

 

The faucet bent its head

over the kitchen sink

like a horse hitched to the house-cart.

 

Once with a press on the button

of the electric teapot

I moved the world,

now I drag the reins.

 

Careful not to get close to its end

lest it turn over again.

 

Translated by Linda Zisquit

 

 

* * *

 

A bed stands on its hind legs

puts its hooves into slippers

takes morning from the freezer

and defrosts under the pillow.

A dream still riding on its back

pulls the reins:

Come back.

 

Translated by Linda Zisquit

 

 

* * *

 

The first blender we received for the wedding

The second blender when we cleared out grandmother’s house

The third blender when my sister was killed

The fourth blender when my mother was hospitalized

The fifth blender when your mother died

 

Let’s make a milkshake

that will compete with The Milky Way.

 

Translated by Linda Zisquit