Losslessness / An Arrow A Wing
I left my / Jewishness / for shame of / a broken story. / I return to these / details to understand / what was lost. / How we lost / our pathway back / through the hills / past an old border. / New borders / of mind / preventing / return.
Psalm of Palms: For Davoud
Glimmers of violence, hope, brotherhood, and belonging grace this poem by Gabie Yacobi about her father's coming of age between Iran, Israel, and California.
Mahane Yehuda
You don’t like smoking in other cities. You take pleasure in buying Friday morning figs from the same spot your tongue first met the lips of someone you would later love, your bodies pressed against graffiti on the shuttered market door in the night.
Two Summer Poems
We proceed to enjoy what is small and warm, / What is spotted and sweet / What is ripe and spoiled; / What is and was, what was and is no longer.
Jerusalem of Sefarad
Sefarad, Safed, Saphah, / Saphon, Saphon, / Toledo - I will write your name with my left hand / For there’s a chance I’ve already forgotten you.
Tehran / تهران
Who taught you to hate the shape of your lips / Your tongue and your mother’s maiden name? / Who forgot your summer clothes at the Black sea?
Shalem / שלם
Three calendars hang in our kitchen: / One begins in spring, one in fall / One in winter. The start and halt / Of a well-used car. A sundial / Someone keeps moving. Summer begins / In my Papa Joon’s memoir.