If I forget…

 

1. Bet Govrin

 

I learned the weight of babies, weaponry

and saw the sun rise like a stranger.

I heard my name and did not recognize it.

The cave of bats that shrieked at nightfall,

the bodies spilling out always flew left.

I stumbled down a mountain – blue and purple

and beautiful as a bruise.

The desert emptied people’s hearts:

there was no more space for heroes.

The air hummed with the coming Storm.

I reminded him of his potency. We sealed

the doors and windows with masking tape.

Sirens shook my senses, I can still hear them.

I left a piece of myself in a particular place

I cannot quite remember.

 

2. Alonim

 

I waited at first for a sign, a calling, wanting

to be taken. We ate avocados - green-black

as butter-filled grenades,

and citrus fruit big as your head –

each segment broken into, an act of violence.

I was reeling from flowers, the scent

of different dusts. In a babel of languages

we managed without words –

sweating on airless nights to a chorus of insects

rubbing legs together for conversation.

I forgot rain, carpet, details, I danced

around the silo with a tractor for a skirt

and learnt the art of cutting perfectly.

My body stuck to his fake leather settee;

it sounded as though it was ripping me

when I tore myself away.

                                                                                           An earlier poem by Clare Kirwin