The poems in this post are part of a special section, curated by Ori Z Soltes and Robert Bettmann, The Jewish Experience.
ANGELS
The vegetable man leans in close
and proclaims that the Hebrew words
for cabbage and cherub are exactly
the same. Buy two, he sweats,
one tooth missing, and I’ll throw
in another for free. It will rot
before I eat it, I tell him, avoiding
eye contact. On the way home, I listen
to a tiny woman playing the harp
on Yafo Street. Her skin folds
over itself as I drop a few shekels
into her case. Empty, other than
a bruised banana. Hours later,
I recognize the song: Leonard
Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” At home,
I tell my husband I want more.
More of what? Our apartment is built
from Jerusalem stone. Our daughter,
wearing wings, is making me
a plastic sandwich in her toy kitchen.
Mommy’s tired again? she asks,
voice small and high. There’s an angel,
I think, whose only job is to fly
around God’s throne and sing.
The song has three words:
holy, holy, holy.
MORNING PRAYER
We spend all morning in bed,
doing things considered forbidden,
although I know them to be holy.
Did you remember to pray? I ask
as your hand slowly roams
the snake of my spine. You kiss me
softly, then harder, cover yourself
as you walk to the den. I imagine
sticky fingers probing the pages
of open siddur, wet tongue
praising all that you believe divine.
Tell me, when you lift your heels
and proclaim life sacred, do you
envision my hips in your mind?
I once beheld your morning prayer,
watched the tallit as it broadened
your shoulders, the binds
of your tefillin as they tattooed lines
upon your skin. I’ll never forget
that morning’s release, how I laughed,
then cried, for no reason at all,
how somewhere, deep in the dew
of the moment, I found God
inside myself, and wasn’t ready
to release her. She was a creature,
soft and wild, licking her wounds,
baring her claws, fiercely arching
her back so she could worship
whatever she wanted.
Natalie Chetboun is a writer and educator whose work is published in The Ilanot Review, The Jerusalem Post, The Museum of Americana, and others. She holds an M.A. from the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar Ilan University. She recently moved to Atlanta, Georgia, after 10 years living in Jerusalem.
Featured image in this post: Street musician in Montmartre – harp 1, Paris April 2011, Cristian Bortes from Cluj-Napoca, Romania, creative commons via wikimedia commons.