Triptych: Jerusalem Affair

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I   Cucumber Season

I am peeling the

green ripe layers

of waxy cucumber rind

it falls to the ground

licking my knees

sour seedlings belying

the sweet fresh flesh

.

you and I began as light

as summer salad

cucumber season

when news flutters

plants shrivel

and August heats up and

stands still

.

years later we are peeling deeper

February cold burnishing our

bruised skins and

the surprise blooms of winter paperwhites

piercing our cores

cracked by the distance and

the cold

.

shmita

this fallow year

the plants will die

our crazy salad wilting

when all is bare and empty

.

I need more

than ripened juicy

cucumbers

to sustain me

or I too will lie fallow

without you

.

II            The Violence of Olives

you must beat the olive

to reach the oil

crushing the fruit

pounding the pit

feeding its heart with the promise

of lamplight

those sparse

prickly trees

don’t reveal their truth

without a fight

.

ancient mountain cover

stroking the wind

caressing the Old City’s

garrisoned walls

remember

where you first opened

your war story to

my peaceable heart

.

in Lebanon

the spindly cedars

did not offer fruit

to assuage your thirst for victory

the enemy had to be beaten

into capitulation

crushing and feeding your solider’s souls

with the promise of light

.

there are no tears when a small green olive

dies for the sake of the supple oil

that lights the lantern

which must darken on the road to hell

.

III   Dreaming in Hebrew

it happened again

last night

I dreamt about you

in Hebrew

.

even though I don’t know

an aleph from a bet

and have no ear

for language

except for the dialect

of desire

.

v’ohev l’ehov otah b’Ivrit

biladit

I love to love you in Hebrew

alone

.

nor can I speak French

but I lived one year

among lavender fields

where cheap red wine

loosened my tongue

tripping over

my French family’s lives

.

enceinte

they explained

when I first arrived

seeking solace and a new home

two weeks to understand

but by then it was too late

they had lost the baby

.

I lost a baby too

he died in my arms

before I tried to wrap myself

in your hard kof

your guttural chet

your fluid kisses

your rapid intoxicating

language of love

.

ten years since

I lost him

and now I contemplate your

foreign words

as a place to lose my sorrow