Foreign Camaraderie

The green goggles on my tenth birthday
opened a new world
at the kibbutz pool.         Now entrusted
with vision of the surface beneath,
filling my lungs
and diving, lungs
and diving
deep into the three meter
blue, far beyond the limit
of other bobbing feet.     Then—
a shoulder tap, a yellow boy, blond
American accent—
his golden cross sank, his necklace
lost, must have been
two years older         and I
dive to my duty, my
brotherly love to this boy
I’ve never met.        I dive
and find on first try the shiny gold
treasure, proudly put it back in the boy’s hands
and on to my next task
as keeper of the deep.
Few minutes later     another tap,
yellow boy waving his hand
holding a finder’s fee—must have been
a week’s candy worth,
which I cannot accept
for duty and for pride.      I turn my back to him,
fill my lungs
and dive, lungs
and dive into the silence
where the boy’s pleadings
will drown.      In a different world
we could have been friends—
could have cannonballed together,
play on the grass, eat watermelon
with dripping faces, but he is very white
and different, his money
foreign, his words strange, and he keeps walking
as I swim back and forth, back
and forth, and now I know
he’s in my debt,     forever maybe,
and when we grow up to be soldiers
in the next unexpected war
we’ll meet in battle, and as he leans
his knife against my chest
his cross will drop and dangle
and I shall know he is my brother
and he will know my face.      Yes—
I will save his gratitude for then.

Amunition Hill

The hill where we took our class trip,
fourth grade, had a stone with hundreds of names.

We walked through the trenches touching the sand bags
passing fingers along machine-gun stands now laden with dust.

The view of Jerusalem rolled beneath us—this is where we
came from, that is where they stood. The main bunker fell last.

We sat and ate our sandwiches under old pine trees, sparrows
twitted sunlight in our hair.

Then I stared at the statue of metal flame and whispered to the teacher
my uncle had died here     and touched

one of the names. Arieh Natanzon
the name I chose from the stone,   classmates

looking at me differently, some of them
kicked pebbles with their shoes, some    looked at the earth.

Deep and Ancient

My dreams have been materializing lately,
slowly yet steadily
growing arms and legs
like a set of brooms carrying water
from a deep well—

Last night I was parachute-gliding
with my mother
over an ocean.       She
was afraid to soar high
failing to use the hot air beneath.
Wind carried me over a vast field
my mother kept shouting
stay away from the road—
the sight of her helpless on the ground
made electric cables rise before me,
my chute, aching for them, collapsed in their arms.

This morning my left shoulder hurt, and my right wrist felt soar.

There must be a deeper inner guide,
who’s survived lifetimes and eons, maybe even
in Egypt or ancient Rome,
and now I wonder about my beloved,
and how we came together—
both carrying childhood confusions,
left handed turned into righties by mothers
who forced a better life—
and where have we met before?

I can see the Nile’s bank—
we are both wearing robes,
you carry a clay jug of water with such willowy grace
I fall in love.    I don’t know
if my father could offer two sheep for your hand,
or we love in narrow allies between houses of mud
under moonlit skies.

I wish I was famous once, I wish
it made my life more fulfilling.
Don’t get me wrong, life in Brooklyn is fine—
dreaming at night keeps me going for days, but
I would have liked to have led a rebelion,
or be the best ship-maker in Rome,
to have an hour each night to study the stars
through a telescope,
seeing bright nameless things
and the darkness between them—
how they glow unknowing
to whom they light the way.

Visiting Childhood

Driving you in my car speaking English
under Hebrew signs from right to left
is like trying to make you laugh underwater, or
combing my hair while faking an orgasm.
What I mean is,
imagine a paddleball on a beach, try to follow
the soft black ball—like a metronome,      then
add fifty more.     Keep following one
while ignoring the others.
Now do it in Spanish.

It is July, and the jellyfish arrive by the hundreds,
filling the water with fiery slivers
before the sea ditches them to the beach
to be mutilated by little boys with popsicle sticks—
a worthy revenge.      We both get stung
on our thighs and run out, escaping
the faceless Mediterranean monsters.      Here!
someone yells, there is one floating there.
And the sea parts of people as if a shark fin
sliced through it,      or Moses came with his cane.

Water never tasted so fresh,      you
never seemed so mine      than in those sprinkler outdoor showers,
washing sand from the cracks of our bodies.
Memory of your hand in mine in fresh
as the waves came crashing,     Dive!   Jump!   Turn!   Dive!
You—trusting me with you life,      I—
opening the box to my sweet-salty childhood.

Tailgate

It wasn’t the second great depression
or the Canadian dollar that soared
but the neighborly sharing
of madness, the joint taste
for Labette, regular or light,
painting faces with bisons—red white
and blue, cheer for the city
who claimed chicken wings,
and the wish for something more exciting
than civility. This carnival won’t be found
north of the border: flying
range of footballs, ping pong punch drunks,
the sophisticated art
of grilling, of parking your Tundra truck
and unloading goodness—
home made sausages, Saint John’s egg
and patty on biscuit, goulash
mixed pasta, and Ann’s famous taco dip—
enough for twelve hours, handled
by gloved hands in lower 20s wind-chill
only northern statesmen
long for.

Across the border each Sunday
inching across the bridge with their passports, not for the game
but the five-hour pre-cooking and drinking,
then another three
after the game, avoiding
the eighty thousand car gridlock,     turning
dumpsters to ovens with charcoal
and wood, torches of solidarity
among die-hard fans—win or lose.
Canada—wide and mnemonic—knows not of this
savage lot on Monday, post-battle
reminder of the ruthless
and broken hearted, face painted
and drunk, those who left their families at home
or brought them along, in SUVs for the day
or RVs for the weekend,     Bills on their hats
and shirts.     Later they will clean up their faces
not to draw attention at Canadian customs, smuggling smoke
in bottles of beer, and ashes
from the fire of mortality.

Before Dawn

Things I answered in dreaming
which I never could have otherwise—riddles

whispered into the vestibule of my ear
before birth, then cloaked by inner monologue; later,

mice running on tracks, I forget
how to spell words and      where is the G and B

on a keyboard. Pennies
gathered under my bed while the rest of the world

pushed away. Before ’67 they used real copper,
my dream was made of such selective

substance: the magnetic pulse of my thoughts
turned. Life comes, draws us closer together, no matter

the consequence: lettuce in my mouth dripping
with fresh clear water

from the afternoon rain. I love the crunching sound
of thunder. Leaves blowing wild

dirt-stained in the wind are more vital
than those floating in water—they hold the rapture, the
unbreakable

sense of exploding in every direction.
I don’t want

to reach wakefulness yet——
Not yet.      Let me swirl

in this gust a little longer, let me
make angels in the white grass

before the sun fills the sky.

Montauk I

The green of the ocean is jolly-gray today
and seagulls float on its waves like surfers
waiting for some thing to happen.

It’s been drizzling since morning, since it was still dark,
and the sky is a vast cloud sitting on the beach,
a leviathan watching the surfers, now turned into seagulls.

It is January and the water must still be tepid.
The beach resorts are sealed for the season,
nailed shut with huge wooden plates
like an abandoned house, ravaged by fire.

The sand is abounding with stones, no shells
or crabs to be found. The only living thing
is the scum, sliding back into the ocean
that has cleansed itself from it.

This resembles the dance of memory in the thinking cap—
that which the mind expels
seeps back in, refuses to leave
and remains floating like shipwreck.
Waiting for a storm, a scent
or a sound, to bring it back to life.

My Flat Tired Bike

We were soul mates once,
riding together in no man’s land.
You were blue and smooth, the road was silent
under your oiled rush. I
was fierce and fearless, pedaled
where you told me to— no window too high.
I wanted to search for the truth, I could feel it with my hands,
but what I felt was you—
your hopes and dreams and ferocious need of it.
But we rode. Oh yes, how we rode.
We saw celebrities on the streets and ate the best cheesecake in New York;
danced to parties in the clouds and kayaked on the Hudson;
traveled through the prairies and got arrested at the border.

Time can not be taken from us.
Now I’m older
and you’re flat.
I tried to fix you— twice,
the air in your tires held for a while and the wind blew once again in our frenzied hair
I held on tight and you screamed with joy over the warm asphalt.
But it’s winter now,
the cement streets have paled
and your wheel’s flat again.
You lie in the corner,
beg for a ride—
Tomorrow, I say.

I wait for our window to open.
When the sun will brighten our path
one more time. You will be pumped and proud
and chain me with excitement, teach me how to love
the road, find another vein I didn’t know existed. Open my eyes
in an off-Broadway show, and take me for pizza later.

Even when you rest in my room, you remind me of who I am.

You Said

Writing is physical.
When you write
you don’t sit
in your desk,
you move
around,
jump
in circles,
twirl
till dizzy,
flap
your hands,
shake
your body
and tremble.
As if the poem
was light,
trapped
in a marble,
and you
a hen,
dancing,
loosening it
free.