February 2023

 

Some days are pierced through

With ambulances’ shrieks.

And a cold grey blob of grief

Settles inside your lungs,

So deep you can’t spit it or swallow,

You hug your own hunching back,

For all the human warmth has melted

Into narrow capillaries of holding on.

Somewhere, not too far from here,

A child has left a wooden railroad,

And took a little train car with him.

To play on shabbat.  

They’ll never meet again,

The car and the track.

For the little train is lost

On the blood-soaked bus stop,

By the little hand that held it in play.

And the meaning is written somewhere

In letters of fire on a sheet of rain.

Somewhere, not too far from here,

Neighbours are tiptoeing around her,

The mother whose life has turned

To lead in her veins.

Somewhere, really close to here,

All our mothers are holding onto

Their children really tight.

Thinking of the fresh grave

With a little train on it.

A new grave in our thirsty land,

The cost of hatred.

The price of discord.