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Contents 

• Why Do You Visit Me Like This? by Raquel Sanchez
• Bosnian Elegy by Alex Debeljak
• Street Corner by Edith Helen Papert
• The Voice of the Turtle by Jill Hammer
• October, 1994 by Sara Eisen
• Whirlpool (for Shani) by Celia Merlin

Why Do You Visit Me Like This?

Raquel Sanchez

Last night you tapped me on the shoulder and took me to your
     dream Grandpa
When I got there I saw you young
     like in the pictures on the walls of your bed room
     in Brooklyn when you had a house with Grandma and
     skipped lunch sometimes just to see if she cared
     about you after fifty-three years
     and... and like when you still spoke Yiddish
In your dream you were on trial
There was a large audience and you asked me to seat myself in one 
     of the first few rows on your left so you'd be able to
     glance to see me
You looked so somber and... so, so patient...
Why do you visit me like this Grandpa?
Why was I supposed to be an observer at your trial?
I didn't even know what you were on trial for...
     but you were there and you were behind a long mahogany
     desk leaning forward and there were a group of judges in 
     black robes like at my graduation where you looked so happy
     ... but these guys wore white wigs Grandpa ...
They looked like Quakers.  What did they want from you?

I saw you searching for Grandma and you did... you found her 
     by your side and she wasn't even close
She was rows behind me... closer to the back where the 
     benches kind of glowed
I could see the incredibly polished wood of the benches between 
     the shoulders of... of those people
They didn't look like you and me

But I saw Grandma and I saw her thin and tiny body like when she 
     was in those pictures with you...
She must have been like that way before she got her last angina 
     attack

She whispered your name every few moments from the back of the 
     room which was filled with all those people
They kept turning toward each other and it seemed like theroom 
     was being filled with their buzzing
     but you and I heard her right through them
Is this why you refused to put on your hearing aid?

Is this why you answered questions put before you by the judges 
     so softly?

You spoke in a way I never knew you to be
I noticed your lips were small for the first time
     maybe because since I've known you, you have always hidden 
     them with your goatee and where was your curly grey hair 
     which has been growing long since Grandma doesn't get to cut 
     it anymore?
     ... but I knew you and I heard you
     and you did speak beautifully.

Did you speak that way when you wore payas, before you received 
your Freud education and still had to mop up your fathers' 
     buildings hallways and stair cases in East New York before 
     every Shabbat

You sounded beautiful Grandpa and I missed you so much at that 
     moment that I awoke for a second to hold my breath and 
     to turn over to cuddle my warm kitty-cat who lies with me 
     faithfully throughout your trial Grandpa

When I returned and took my seat again, I realized I had missed 
     much more than the moment it took me to fluff my pillow but 
     it didn't matter to me because I never really wanted to know 
     all your secrets

All I know is that I found the judge accusing you boisterously
and he was saying something about abandoning the living ones 
     who love you and about your denial of Grandma's psychic ability  
     and your disrespect about her decision to die.

I was enraged!  I screamed inside, wanting them to leave you 
     alone.  I turned around through the hum of people to see if
     Grandma could help but I saw that she had already started to 
     whisper to you Grandpa and I heard her while she was nodding 
     her head peacefully and I saw you hear her. She was saying:  
     "Patience Dear, patience... we'll be together soon."

Bosnian Elegy

Alex Debeljak

Sing, young poet, touch my inflamed skin, tanned by lengthy treks
through trackless hills to the end of the world. Don't give up now,
though the gunners' feverish lenses stare at the damp stains on the
facades of libraries and palaces that constantly call memories of

a cruel century to mind. Simply list what's left: flocks of swallows
twittering beneath bygone arches and campaniles, the eternal wisdom
of a French novel we read in bomb shelters, the downy blond fuzz on
the earlobes of babies that disappears so suddenly, dull thuds from

Panonia's plains. The smell of gunpowder irritates human lungs. We
have not crossed the threshold. So speak up now when deep pools of
never consecrated water make waves. Rings glow at the bottom. Things

past are joyous. Believe me, truly: I am ready, sing to me for the
last time of love's tempests, of the mysteries of women's shadows,
and marble stairs. Sing, as you sang before you turned fully grey!

Street Corner

Edith Helen Papert

The tattered one
lifts his cane at his tormentors
shuffles his hate
in each direction
at each playful teenager -
noisy geese honking
in a danse macabre ballet
of hours, days, weeks
on the tree-lined corner
                of their school.

It is a laugh!
A honking laugh of bronx cheers
for the Laugh Machine
when a dodger fails.

The shabby conductor lifts his baton
and mouths an aimless aria,
his lips grey
with the foam of fury.

Now, the sun steps down from the podium
The ringleader crosses his eyes
and brays his curtain call.
His audience laugh their applause.
The mad conductor's baton
directs the wind instruments,
and a deaf leaf 
           flutters to the ground.

The Voice of the Turtle

Jill Hammer

"The blossoms appear on earth... The song of the turtledove is heard
in our land" - Song of Songs 2:12 (JPS translation)

"The voice of the turtle is heard in our land" - Song of Songs 2:12
(King James translation)

I eat flowers
to coat my belly with velvet,
thinking of gongs.
I had a voice, until some self-righteous
translator stole it.
Now, singing hurts
in my raspy throat.

The birds flap noisy wings
and fly beyond me, giggling
their feathery tunes.
Salamanders scamper
away. My short fleshy legs
are tree fungus, the underside
of light. I try to call out
love and spring, then
sink into river-mud
and spiky grass,
draw in my head and feet,
dream of the canon's gift.
I am a silent stone,
but in the King James Bible, I sang.

Knowing the trick
of living centuries,
I don't despair.
I defy meaning.
I bury myriad eggs
in warm dry sand,
my basket of reeds.

Inside my green jade house
which won't admit a thing,
I'm searching for words
which will gently bellow,
flesh out and grow
soft as green figs.

October, 1994

Sara Eisen

Simon said walk
so I ran
Simon said jump
so I skipped
touch your toes
I stood still
Simon didn't say
Simon said like
so I loved
Simon said smile
so I sang with delight
Be happy forever
I stood still
Simon didn't say
Simon said cry
so I wept with sorrow
Simon said
"Try to put the pieces back together again"
so mightily, lustily I fought
Be filled with light and love, my child
I know this game
I'm a big girl
Simon didn't say

Whirlpool (for Shani)

Celia Merlin

She does this thing with
her eyes
as she puts on
her play for me in
the living room.
She rolls them up and backwards
not looking at
yet talking to
me all the time.
Her four year old face
is angled and squared
knowing more now than I
could ever have known.
Floating about the room
her skin bears my wounds
like jewels,
her silken-maize locks,
and my fear
her tiara.
In another dimension
I know she's my mother
or husband who left ‏
she and I
together here turning
on a whirlpool carpet
both of our eyes
rolled up and backwards
in protest.

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