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