I’ll cede ground that isn’t mine.I’ll make my grandparents’ apologies,I’ll make my own, since they’re still heretaking constitutionals, surveying. Evenmy renunciations are cribbed.We think we own our graves
on the Mount of Olives, gravesin the hills beyond Jerusalem, doorbellsalong the old streets where my name appears,and at the corner somebody surprises mewearing my face. Who’s to say whose.Here’s capital and all its homelessness.
We’ve paid for our graves up frontwith a view of the messiah. We’re livingin the waiting room. I’ve changedthe allegiance of my plural pronoun, given upmy primordial lisp. A great theft made me, and nowthis is no place for family life.
Nava EtShalom’s poems have appeared or will soon appear in Boston Review, The Believer, and other journals, and have won the 92Y Discovery Prize and a Pew Fellowship in…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, May/June 2019