Dahliush

For Dahliah Ravikovitch 

Dahliush

I call you this even 

Though when we met 

You were already gone, so 

Now, we nestle 

Beween the pages of a book 

That was stolen from a

Public library in Texas,

That I'd bought for twenty sheqels 

On Agripas Street.

"How ever did you end up in 

Texas" I ask, pillow talk. 

But you wrinkle your nose 

At me, and say nothing

And I say, "You know, 

I too once owned a dress of fire,

My parents made me wear it,  

Year after year, until the 

White crinoline had 

Melted to my legs."

You look at me, 

Amused, but sad, and say

"What do you mean, 'you too',

Don't you recall, that 

In the end, it was

Not my dress at all, 

It was only me that burned," 

And I roll away

And you touch my back. 

The scars on my back.

26.06.2025

"I want to find a 

New pair of comfy sandals 

That don't look like 'old lady' shoes."

"I want to get into hiking."

"I want to finally organise my living room."

"I want to... 

I want... 

... 

I want a new distraction from the futile, and terminal nature of existence.

I want to feel pleasure 

And joy in 

Laughing at this absurdity. 

Remember:

Godot never shows. 

It just is what it is.

22.06.2025 ii

I dreamt that the stone had 

taken root in my pocket,

roots like pointed fingers, 

penetrating my hip

and following the path 

of least resistance, 

new fruit burst forth from my 

flowering mouth. 

22.06.2025

The apricot I ate this morning in the mamad,

which I'd taken, half awake, from the grey plastic bowl that 

Dvora had set before us

a small, sweet, refreshment 

between booms,

is also a poem. After finishing it

in only three bites, I 

tucked its small stone 

into the pocket of my housedress.

17.06.2023 iii

Here is a piece of

Sage advice: when you 

Live in a warzone 

There's no such thing 

As a leisurely shit.

(It's ok to laugh!

Real life is always ignominious and absurd!)

Instead, you wait

Until it's ready to come out

(Or you don't, depending 

Upon the time of day,

And when, you've learned that the

Missiles usually come)

You thank god that some genius 

Invented bidets

And you do not sit, and write 

Poems on your phone, 

Or let your mind wander as you

Doom-scroll Instagram, because 

Exhausted as you may be, from

Four sleepless nights in a row

At any second your 

Phone might wake up, 

With another red alert

And while death from a 

Ten-tonne ballistic might feel far

Too overwhelming, and ridiculous to be real

Dying while on the toilet, is

A concept of which, 

Ironically, you can all too easily conceive.  

17.06.2025 ii

I don't know why, 

But white nights

Of red alerts seem to

Necessitate strong black coffee

Thick as mud

And cheap cigarettes

This is no time for gentle

Cappuccinos 

Or thinking of one's health

Longevity, it seems,  

Is the real gamble.

17.06.2025

After yet another White Night 

Of Red Alerts, 

This

Blinding yellow morning

At least this time

In Dvora's mamad, 

Avi, a gentle soul 

Who's let his daughter (21) paint 

Blue irises on his arm,

has brought Whiskey

And two golden painted tea glasses

Only two

I've a feeling he didn't 

Know that I- 

Dvora's neighbour,

Would be here.

To You, Who Are So Upright

To you, who are so upright, 

Concerned with justice and equality;

I would like to ask:

What is it like

To live your days in sun and peace without shadows

To dip your toes in my world at will

Because you were bored

Or maybe because you needed to prove how worldly you were, 

Or worse

You needed a dopamine hit

And my pain, 

And their pain

Is such a delicious vein, that you

Could signal your virtue to the ends of the earth?

What is it like

Never to have to think of things like

Wherever you are, 

Where the closest bomb shelter can be found, and

How many seconds you'll have to get there

And to know, by some internal mechanism exactly what 15 seconds feels like

Or worse, how you'll shield your young children's bodies with your own, as you

Throw yourselves down on the ground, under a dangerous sky when you

Find yourselves caught between your children's gan, and home when the azaka sounds? And

What is it like

To never have to think about

Mothers, burying their sons, or daughters

Or children burying their fathers, or mothers 

(Or both)

Except, of course, in the most hypothetical terms as you tighten your lips

Click your tongue and think "How awful"?

Or to look in the mirror, and decide "it's time for a trim", so you 

Call up your hairdresser

(The one that you've gone to since your early twenties,) 

To make an appointment only to learn

She was killed

Last week 

When she was caught outside, 

Between her children's school,  and home when there was a red alert.

And as it turns out, 

Lying flat on the ground, on top of her kids 

Did save them from the worst, 

But couldn't protect her soft body, or her head from falling shrapnel? 

And as you shout at us in the 

Streets of Europe or America, calling us 

"Baby killers", screaming about "genocide"

We know: you're transparent as glass. 

All your concerns, for 

Justice, and equality, are symbols for a status that you could never possess.