Pashtida

 I swear, I never dreamt of opening a makolet* before, but apparently, in Israel, if you're not careful, these things can just happen.  

See, all I wanted was to make a pashtida*, but it'd been a long week, and if I was going to cook, there was no way I could handle going to the market myself; "spoons*", after all, are a precious commodity. 

So anyway, I went on Wolt, and ordered everything I'd need from Shufersal, but as soon as they confirmed the order, I realised I'd forgotten to order the Scandinavian cheese, so, I scrolled down and found it at Keshet Te'amim, and in addition, they had the coffee I like, on sale, buy one, get one half off, and these gluten free cookies, so I added it all to my cart, and in just the nick of time, hit "check out", avoiding the additional 5.90 fee for a second order. 

So in the meantime, I'm getting out my eggs, butter, and some veggies I had in the freezer from God knows when, when my phone does its little "beepbop" thing, so I go to look, and both orders are on their way, but Shufersal was out of humos, (can you believe it?) and Keshet Te'amim was out of Scandinavian.

"Fuck a duck!" I exclaim, and decide, in exasperration, to make another order after all; this time, from AM:PM. 

So, while I'm in the middle of my AM:PM order, my order from Shufersal arrives. I unpack my 4 bags of gluten free pita, and perform a feat of such advanced geometry in fitting it all into my lilliputian freezer, that even Buckminster Fuller, would have been impressed, then go back to my phone to finish ordering the backbone of my pashtida, (and any pashtida, if you ask me,) the Scandinavian.

So.

I'm on the AM:PM page, ordering my Scandinavian, as well as some more humos, because, you can never have too much humos, (especially when your freezer is stuffed with pita; I'm in a food rut; don't judge me! ) and I've just checked out, when my phone does its little "beepbop" noise again. 

Keshet Te'amim is on the way, but in addition to being out of the Scandinavian, they were out of a few other items: the gluten free cookies, humos, and the coffee. 

I'm standing there, staring at my phone's screen in disbelief, when once again, the doorbell rings; "Keshet Te'amim is fast!" I say out loud. 

I go to pick up the single bag the driver has left on my door mat, wondering what the hell is even in it, pull apart the staples at the top, and see that they've sent me a kilo of flour, and two bottles of water. 

"Jesus fuck."

I'm praying to God, that AM:PM comes through, because at this point I'm exhausted from answering the door and unpacking groceries, and I've still got to cook! 

Anyways. 

The AM:PM page, says they have these gluten free Brazilian cheese balls, so, in addition to the gluten free cookies, the coffee, and the gawddamned Scandinavian, I order a bag, having no idea how I'm going to fit it into my overstuffed shoebox of a freezer.  

While I'm waiting, I break seven eggs into an aluminum foil baking dish, pour in cream, and those dubious, formerly frozen vegetables, and I'm just biding my time until my order from AM:PM arrives, when suddenly, "beepbop". 

"Your order from AM:PM is on its way; unfortunately, we were out of a few items."

"Dear God, please, no."

I nervously open the receipt. 

"Gluten free cookies? Check

Humos? Ok, you substituted Strauss for Tzabar. I'll live.   

No Pão de Queso. Ugh. That sucks. Whatever. 

Scandinavian?"

As I'm pronouncing a multilingual litany of curses, loudly enough for the neighbours to complain, my doorbell rings again. 

I collect my order from the tired looking, twenty-something guy who looks like he just got off of miluim*, and momentarily wish I'd tipped him the full 15 sheqels. I close the door, put the 3, blue bags on the kitchen table, and, hope against hope; 

"Humos Achla, check as checked.

Cookies, ditto.

Cheese? No. Wait. What the..."

Wolt customer service responds uncharacteristically quickly for once. "I didn't order Scandinavian smoked salmon", I say, and Lilach, from customer support, apologises on behalf of Wolt, replete with an alarming number of emojis, and promises, that that if I'll hold on for a few moments, she'll be happy to contact the vendor.

"It's just that, I'm a vegetarian," I say, "and I'm making a pashtida."

Trying to make a connection, I tell her about my night, how "I'd only intended to order from Shufersal," and how, "but this is Israel: first world nation in the streets, third world banana republic in the sheets", and Lilach responds with a pineapple emoji.

"Would you like us to credit your account, or your original payment method?" asks the emoji queen.

"Well, I really need the cheese" I say. 

"One moment", she says, then an octopus emoji.

A few more minutes, and she tells me I can make another order for "just the cheese from another vender", and that, because of all the trouble I've had, they'll "...happily waive the minimum". 

I respond with an owl.

Finally, I find a Rossman's on Wolt, and order my Scandinavian.  

A short while later, my doorbell rings; it's another very exhausted looking guy with his helmet visor up, who hands me a bag, which I take inside, and open, and it's another kilo of flour, along with a pair of rubber gloves. 

Doorbell again: a case of dog food and an entire branch of bananas.

Doorbell: I've stopped hoping, but lo and behold, it's the Scandinavian! 

But now, 

Doorbell: sixty-four challahs from Angel's bakery.

Doorbell: painter's tarp and 5 jars of Vaseline.

Doorbell:

MAKE IT STOP!

Doorbell: a palate of Deep River Salt & Vinegar chips.

(This, I don't mind. )

Doorbell. Doorbell. Doorbell. 

There is, apparently, no rest for the weary, the wicked, nor the Wolt-ing.

So, this all started a couple of weeks ago. I've since opened a makolet in my front room. The Arab guy who runs the one next door, where I used to buy my bottles of home made pickles, is no longer speaking to me, and I haven't slept without the doorbell waking me up every couple of minutes in longer than I can remember.  

I did finally make my pashtida, but by that time, I was over it. 

There's gotta be a moral here, somewhere. Maybe, if you find it, you'll let me know. I gotta go. I've got customers. 

•••

Makolet- a neighbourhood market

Pashtida- like a quiche, but without the crust.

Spoons- analogy for capacity, used in chronic illness and disabled communities.

Miluim- reserve duty

Hello,

This is my blog

Like it, or not

Some of it's good, 

(Most of it's not)

But in the end, it

Matters not; I 

Just needed somewhere 

To bury the rot.

~●~●~●~

21.06.2026

Anything that's ever 

Any help at all

Always seems to come too late, 

If, in fact, it comes at all. 

If you call the suicide hotline, 

(As I did, today, 

Here, in Israel, it's called "Eran"

Dial "one-two-oh-one")

You'll hear three rings, 

And then the hold music 

(Ironically, a Shlomoh Artzi 

Song, that's called "Going Home".) 

If you can stand to sit

Through all of that, in your

Moment of distress, 

Finally, a voice answers,

You breathe deep, prepare to speak, 

But then:

"Please leave a message, and we'll call you back 

During our regular hours of operation:

Sunday, through Thursday, 

From 4:00 PM, to 9:00"

And I swear, you won't be 

Able to keep yourself from laughing 

At such absurdity,

And you remind yourself, 

Even if they'd answered, 

What could they possibly do?

I have long maintained 

That "suicide intervention", 

Always seems to focus 

On all the wrong things; 

Stopping someone from dying,

Isn't the same as 

Helping them live.  

Despite what some may say,

Despite that catchy, 

Pop-psych phrase;

Not all problems

At the end of the day,   

Are temporary, 

Regardless, of what they say. 

11.06.2026

Surviving, is like an old, 

Second-hand car

A real, gas guzzling piece-of-shit 

That leaks oil and coolant, 

And god knows what else, 

All over the road and your

Fucking driveway. 

It was just gonna be temporary,

That's the promise you made yourself 

When you plunked down the last 

Nine hundred bucks in your account

But it keeps breaking down,

And, now, every single time, 

It eats your whole paycheck, 

Just to keep it on the road.

And, you just keep getting it 

Fixed, bcause you

Can't see clear to

Any other way

Eventhough your insurance rates 

Keep going up

And the AC quit the day that you got it, 

(And so did the windows, and it isn't a fuse) 

And it's almost July 

And it's starting to smell 

Like mildew, and maybe

Like something died 

Inside the dash. 

And you hate every minute, 

But there's nothing you can do,  

Because this is it, now

It is what it is

And just like whatever 

Got struck in your dash

You too, are fucking stuck. 

And this piece-of-shit life.

23.04.2026

She'll come at some point,  

In a moment of quiet 

My fears will soften, 

And fall away

In dispassionate reason

She'll sit beside me

And silently take my 

Hand in hers

There'll be no drawn out 

Hallway goodbyes 

All of that will

Already have happened

If I am so fortunate  

My suicide will come

As naturally, in its time, 

As any other death

Dirty dishes may 

Sit in the sink,

And damp washing may still 

Hang half-dried on the line

And the afternoon sun, 

May intrude through the blinds, 

Turning flecks of airborne dust

Into sparkling confetti

And in that moment

As the world carries on

     (As it always has, 

      And it always will,)

With a sigh of long 

Awaited peace

I'll simply know

It's my time to go. 

21.04.2026

What value is resilience, when 

Everyday, I

Smash into yet another dead-end,

Like a Ferrari, full-speed 

Into a brick wall? 

At what point does the 

Cost of repairs become prohibitive?

Already, my body's mostly 

Grey matting, and epoxy; 

The chassis is cracked.

(to say nothing of the axles.)

Even the steering is fucked, 

It seems I've 

Lost my ability to

Avoid dangerous obstacles.

The Problems Inherent to Suicide Intervention and Prevention

The following is a personal treatise on the field of suicide intervention and prevention, and should not be read, nor construed as a letter of present intent. 

It should be noted, that whilst it was written about my own experiences with suicide intervention, prevention, and mental health triage in general over the years, and as such, it remains a valid critique from my perspective, I share it with a note of trepidation, because despite my own experiences, I'm loathe to diminish the potential help it may afford those for whom it is more fit. 

~●~●~

The problem with so much "suicide prevention" and "intervention", is that it seems to focus exclusively on stopping the act itself, too often ignoring the real-world threats that may be prompting it. 

 

In my experience, (with rare exception,) preventionists operate under the premise that suicidality, is a maladaptive response to trauma, or emotional injury, and predicated upon thought distortions, and so, they follow one (or more,) of several possible scripts: 

•"Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem."

•"As long as you're here, things can always change for the better." 

•"Think of the people who love you."

And of course, my favourite bits of psycho-pabulum, (so concise, they easily fit on a bumper sticker, button or tee-shirt,)

•"You are enough."

- and-

•"It gets better". 

Whilst these are all lovely sentiments, they completely fail to address the reality that many of us who live our lives with the knowledge that we're unequipped to survive in a world of constant demands to which we're unable to respond, and so we face a lonely, painful existence wherein we're constantly under real-world threat, while those who'd previously offered support, become increasingly frustrated and impatient with us, oblivious to the fact that the help they were offering wasn't the kind of help of which we were able to avail ourselves, until they too disappear, leaving us ever more depleted and burned out than we were to begin with, and so, unless something else takes us out first, eventually, we'll have no choice but to do it ourselves. 

Much of the disconnect seems to stem from a complete lack of understanding of less than visible disabilities such as Autism, ADHD, AuDHD, Major Depressive Disorder, C-PTSD, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and others as well as differences in extant support systems. It's not necessarily these conditions themselves that are the impetus for suicidality, rather, it's the fact that they can often render us neurologically and therefore, physically unable to effectively navigate the compounding demands of this world, and too often, when we say that we are unable do something, we're disbelieved, and there's an insinuation that we're simply not trying hard enough, and we're labelled as "ungrateful", or worse, disingenuous to begin with. 

Believe it or not, when I think of suicide, it's often less about self-dissolution, and more a desperate bid- ironically, to "survive" with my sense of agency, dignity, and safety intact. When it's not about hurt feelings, but the actual inability to survive in this world that's been set up in ways that actively repeatedly cause me harm, the thought of finally becoming immune to those harms, is the only thing that brings me peace. 

All of this is to say that, what to others may seem like a desire for self-annihilation, is often born of a final, desperate sense of clarity, of the fact that the obstacles we face, simply in order to continue to exist, are sometimes truly insurmountable, and unless and until the field of suicide prevention comes to terms with such uncomfortable complexities, and commits to actually confronting them, it will remain for many of us, no more than a useless, inappropriate, actually injurious parody. 

17.03.2026

Often, in the midst of some 

Day to day mundanity, 

My eyes scan the room

And note that door

And something like ambivalence floods my veins; 

How easy, to rise, 

Discern my path, and walk through it

Even if 

For no other reason 

Than the simple fact that 

It's there.  

28.02.2026

Then at some point 

Between the alerts, you'll 

Make yourself a mug of tea 

          (something to remind 

            what "normal" felt  

            like)

You'll sit in your kitchen 

At the open window, 

Wrapped in a long, black, 

Thrift store wool coat 

          (that once held a man, 

            at least twice your 

            size,)

And note the indifferent late afternoon sky 

All daubbed with pretty puffs of pink

          (so thick, you think   

          "they look like cotton 

            candy",)

And dunk a biscuit in your tea

Hold it there for

Five "Mississippis"

        (the perfect length, for     

          just slightly soggy,)

Then take a bite 

          (with tongue– not 

           teeth, pressed

           hard against the

           roof of your mouth)

And thus you spend your in-between times

Waiting for your tea to cool

Waiting for the sun to sink 

Waiting for the sabbath to end

And the next red alert that you know will come

          (you can practically feel    

           a new rhythm forming)

And already, your body knows this notation 

Already, she's relearned 

All her old steps

          (almost independently, 

           like you 

           weren't even

           necessary,)

And before you know it, this will feel normal

You'll float from couch, to kitchen, to shelter

To bathroom, to bed,

And shelter again

All on cue, an automaton

And to anyone watching, this 

Strange performance 

It might even look like you're

Actually alive.  

08.01.2026

Often, places make better poems 

Than clumsy words might hope to construct. 

An alley runs through the middle of my block, 

All lined by wild, and weedy lots

Where cacti and tamarim share the red soil 

At night, they're home to crying jackals,

Heat mad cats, and balletic bats

Once, I thought I'd found a gift

A tousle of oleander– 

        "Rapunzel's hair"

But in the end, it was white hibiscus

A pleasant tea

A promise, dashed. 

28.12.2025

Of all possibilities, it's a 

Small, green, sour apple I choose

To break my forty hour fast.

Hungrily, I bite through it's 

Lightly textured skin, perfect

Pale yellow crisp flesh, and

Do not stop until

Just a stem, 

And a few small, brown seeds 

Are all that remain in my sticky palm.

All of this, simply to say, 

To you, who've so kindly checked in,

That reports of my death by starvation 

Are greatly exaggerated, indeed.  

03.12.2025

The thin chill of late Autumn's evening Haifa air,

Dances in through 

Open windows, and 

Like shy feathers, touches the 

Skin of my bare shins and feet 

While the rest of my body 

Curls inward to nest 

Inside my gigantic, faux fur coat.

I'm laying on the couch

Its back cushions stacked 

Upon the floor at one end, 

To widen the space of my crippled's bed. 

Through the same windows, 

The day's light fades 

Not gently, it explodes 

In oranges, and vivid pinks, 

Then surrenders to blues, and finally black

And outside, a cat yowls 

And sticky cars' tires complain

As they try to hold onto the street

It's my body, now that opens a memory:  

Cold, late afternoons, 

Sat by the computer, 

Beside the open bedroom window 

How empty that apartment 

When She wasn't home

Loneliness, like spikes in 

The bottoms of bare feet on cold, buckled floorboards- 

How I'd push it away 

In the warm escape of 

Others' lives online

And when sometimes even 

That wasn't enough

I'd climb into our bed, my cold feet, not 

Daring to reach out for the

Home of her foot's sole

Instead, like my body right now, 

Protectively,

Pulled inwards toward self

And rub them together 

Beneath the duvet covered

Down winter comforter

My body trying desperately to

Pull in warmth

My face, out, 

Open throated gulping air

The cold New York air like 

Clean, ice water.  

01.12.2025

The jets, whose roars split 

The Haifa skies 

Are so dammed heavy; you

Can't even begin

To imagine. In fact,

They weigh

As much, as the sum

Of every world

They've had to destroy. 

This is just the way with war: 

Each rocket–

Every missile, grenade..

Even bullet 

Carries unimaginable mass

And always, 

No matter which side

They leave behind

A million black holes.

Now, don't get it twisted, 

This isn't condemnation.

I know too well the importance of war.

But at the same time,

How can I possibly

Ignore the suck

Of all those black holes? 

Memory Of Somehing That Never Happened

That time I wanted so badly to feel 

A different kind 

Of dust on my boots

Red, so fine and dry‐ 

Do you remember how I 

Begged you to come to the desert with me? 

To sleep again 

Underneath black skies

To feel the chill of earth, so dry

That even in summer, at night, we'd freeze 

To wake at first light

To the longing, red hills

To the world: a fresh wound

Yawning, open before us.

16.11.2025

The tissue-thin, dried-out, brown, crumpled leaves, still sit–undisturbed, in the grey, stone pot that you left behind, when you moved out.  

It's the only thing that, when I moved in, I left in its place, on the floor, by the window. 

Unlike the box of your old cookware, that I had to haul to the orange street bin, or the long, folding, banquet table, I carried under my arm, all the way to the Wizo thrift shop. 

These things all had stories that took up too much space, and you left them behind, for me to deal with.

But the heavy, grey, volcanic stone pot, was already a ghost; I just think you forgot.

Trust me when I say this: in my fifty-six years, I've moved more times than I can count, and as unromantic as it may sound, we're always leaving our ghosts behind:

     An old plant in a corner 

       we'd forgotten to water

     A snow globe given by an   

       office friend

     A shoebox of some 

       deceased relative's

       clippings 

All just ghosts from a life, 

Ephemeral things.

15.11.2025

In this driving, blinding, crushing rain, 

There's little to nothing that can be seen, 

Beyond the house across the street;

Even the bright, port crane lights are gone. 

I dreamt, last year, of a massive flood, 

That swallowed the jettys that lie in the Bay

And went on to eat the docks, 

The port, Bat Galim, and the Lower City

And as the waves white caps lashed hard 

The houses, and cracked their graffiti'd facades,

The concrete block, brick and rock 

Walls b'neath gave way, and fell 

The kiosks, cafés, Tambours, makolets, 

All seemed to sigh, surrender, and sink.

The old Russian men who ran shops in Hadar,  

Soviet, and stoic, shrugged and drank tea

The Christian Arabs all fervently prayed, 

Masjid minarets played Al Adhan

And as the waters continued to rise 

Threatening us, atop Har HaCarmel

News 12 said that "..well, of course,

the new Ark has long already been built,"

Then went on to say, "...but there's only room, 

for Bibi, Sarah, and the Haredim".

And while I stood at my kitchen window,

Looking out as my city drowned,  

'Twas the raven I envied, who'd refused to return 

And not at all, the supplicant dove.

14.11.2025

This place I sit by open window watching the world drown

Although the sky is falling, nothing ever seems to stop:

Police sirens wail, the traffic hums, and ships (imperceptibly) "race" 

To unload goods at port for us and our impatience

The neighbours across the way 

Are fighting yet again;

He'd promised to fix the roof last year and now the floor is wet. 

So much commerce, all the time; so much to get done

I try to lose myself, instead in watching my pigeons; 

Some huddle 'neath dudei shemesh, 

Others bravely stood atop: defy the downpour, and

Autumn chill, to gaze upon their world;

They seem to say, "why miss a moment, of this hungry life? It eats us whole, no matter what, so live! Don't just survive."

13.11.2025: "The Emissary"

The obstreperous white of 

Cranes' wings in flight

Strike the battleship-steel-grey sky, and 

Slash the seamless, fog-drawn dawn;

A brilliance, bright as 

Summer's Sun

All calls to mind, how even now,  

In dark'st November, 

When torpor pulls 

Me back to slumber—  

The refuge of dreams, 

(When all of mine have 

Come undone,)

It's neither time to 

Give in, nor give up, 

With promises waiting, like 

Bulbs 'neath the frost

If only I can just hold on 

Through interminable Winter's stark, 

As day succeeds night, the Spring will dawn

Only new light can vanquish old dark.

06.11.2025: Dad

I've kept your mug.

The one with the alligators, 

Where each one's different, 

But every one, 

Has the tail of another one

Clamped in its teeth.

You'd told me once, how 

The only time, you'd 

Use it, was when, 

To you, it felt like 

The entire world

Was "nipping at your tail"

And I understood instantly,

How it was a part of you

From outside of mom, and me. 

I've often wondered

Where did you get it? 

Did you buy it for yourself 

Some evening, waiting, 

Between trains?

Back in the early Seventies  

When you worked for 

Barton-Aschman

When we lived in Chicago,

And we only had one car, 

So, at night, after work 

You'd take the train, 

Into Evanston, 

Where mom and me 

Would come pick you up

Me, in footsie pajamas

Red boots and winter coat

While the impotent wipers

Swept the snow off of the windscreen

Of mom's burgundy Renault? 

Or, did you find it one morning, 

Left, wrapped, on your desk, 

A gift from a co-worker, 

Or maybe the whole team

Because they'd actually seen 

The monsters that you fought 

(Both from without, and from within?)

Did it make you feel seen? 

Did you feel understood? God, 

I hope that you did.

I hope that at least once, 

 

The world had been more kind to you, 

Than it later, had become, 

When you lay dying in a bed 

That wasn't even yours, 

Alone and scared, while 

The insurance company threatened.

I've kept your mug. 

Once, when I was visiting you 

And mom, from New York, you'd 

Walked into the kitchen,

Just as I was about to pour my coffee into it

 

And you told me not to use it, 

That it was personal, something special

And you told me why, so that 

Maybe I wouldn't feel offended

And I'd understand, how for you 

It was sacrosanct; an amulet 

For the worst of times. 

I kept your mug

Out of all of the objects that

Populated our home with their stories

This is the part of you

I chose to bring with me. 

I've used it only once

When I felt trapped by my shortcomings 

That was back in New York, just after you'd died.

I kept your mug. 

I keep it safely tucked 

Towards the back of the cabinet, 

Behind all my others, 

Deeply loved, even if rarely seen

And I hope that maybe 

That's the way, you'd 

Told yourself 

I felt about you. 

29.10.2025

My ancient home is 

High above the bay 

In Fall, I open up 

All the windows 

Air out the rooms from the 

Stale heat of Summer

But none of the doors in my

Apartment latch

And with the windows open

It becomes a wind tunnel

And the wind plays percussion, 

And the neighbours complain

But who am I?

And who are they, 

To try to dictate when the

Bay wind, can play?

01.11.2025

It starts as soft panic, that

Sends me back 

To the sweetness of sleep. 

When finally, I wake

It's at the insistence 

Of my twitching nerves.

The toilet calls

Then coffee, and I'll stand, 

Once again at my

Kitchen window, as the

Electric kettle, lit blue,

Bubbles

I'll assess the world, 

Note the state of the bay,

And whether the pigeons are around today

Then, coffee made, 

I'll adjourn to my chair; maybe

Flip through my phone

Or write a small poem

Anything to ignore the

Insurmountable mess that's

Taken over every 

Inch of my home–—

      "Just, don't look up- keep  

       your

       Eyes on your phone, or

       Something else,

       Something

       manageable, maybe

       Sew another hat

       Or write another poem"

While meanwhile, the piles of 

Detritus grow

And so does the mould that's destroying my home 

And wreaking this hell on my body. 

28.10.2025

By far, it's not that it's 

Actually cold, but 

There's an absence of 

Warmth in the air 

Already, I sense the 

Truncated light, that 

Turns grey afternoons 

Into ink-black-blue nights 

Already, again these 

Old bones of mine 

Have turned into picky, 

Dith'ring, crack'd sticks

Who beg me to pull on my father's old coat, 

A seasonal surrender,

But I protest! Look,

The sun is still bright as it

Was in July, 

And flocks of white sailboats 

Still rock on the bay 

But closer by 

To where I stand 

The roof where my friends roost,

Is silent today

No cooing or flapping, 

No comforting din

Just empty and quiet

No performance given

And down, below

Where the streetcats yowl

Or laze, in afternoon's 

Dust speckled sun

It's deserted too; no 

Amity found

There's only the city's 

Far-off, lonley hum. 

20.10.2025

Oh, this precious thing

This old, stained, banged-

Up brass tray, marked with 

Permanent footprints from my 

Mother's Shabbos candlesticks

And a small, round, nickel-sized

Imperial Russian seal, 

That looks like an ancient coin 

And captivated me as a girl

This tray that my 

Bubbe's bubbe carried 

All the way to the New World from Minsk

(Or maybe it was Pinsk?)

This thing, that

Like an archaeologist, I've 

Carefully extracted with an exacto-knife

From layers, and layers of bubble wrap 

And now hold tight, to my chest,

The wetness on my cheek, 

Surprising even me

Hundreds of years

Generations of daughters, 

And mothers, and bubbes

Now here with me,

The last of the line

Pressed hard to my heart, 

This culmination of dreams

Each year, we would say

"לשנה הבאה בירושלים!"

"Next year, in Jerusalem!"

And even now, it's hard to believe, that 

Here I am

And you are now here with me

(Maybe not Jerusalem, 

But only a short train ride away) 

And though I've not brought forth a 

Daughter, 

Who will stand one day, like we

A white kerchief on her head, and

Sweet prayers on her lips,

And sadly, I know that this 

Tray, and all of our ghosts 

Will inevitably end 

Up in some junk shop, someday

But for now, at least,

This Friday night

I'll stand in my livingroom 

Wooden matches in my hand

(White kerchief on my head

Sweet prayers on my lips)

And you will stand beside me

In this Land of all our dreams, 

And finally fulfill 

The promise we had made.

18.10.2025

Skeletal fingers of

Winters trees, 

Accusing the sky, 

And bluegrey, side-

Ways slanted light

On felt-cover'd mounds

All painted white

That threat'n to pull me, toward

Hiraeth, to someplace, 

Where weary, my

Soul might rest

And dream of warm light, 

While here in crass brightness, 

I dream only of softness 

Of dimmed, blurred lines

And patient stillness,

The kind that I 

Have only found 

In Deep'st Winter's night.  

16.10.2025

...and yet

Another haphazardly made wound is healing, 

New flesh, knitting to old

Even the stomach

And liver have stopped conspiring 

To fill all my hours with bile

And this late October day 

And its gently bright, clear skies, 

All puff dappled white, and

Temperate air, is too 

Much from which to hide

And even my friends, the pigeons,

Have deserted their roof-

Top roost

I imagine, they've all gone out shopping 

For more delicate lunchtime repost

Perhaps a few careless crumbs dropped 

On the decks of one of the boats 

Who look half-asleep on the 

Silver faced bay, barely 

Bobbing at all as they float

And the poor yellow alley cat, 

Who's yowling, hungry, below, 

May have to stray, and hunt

Elsewhere today, for his meager, daily prey

The world seems to be in

Accord

Someone must have found a way

After all, this Fall light is 

Far too sweet, and

No bird will die today. 

15.10.2025

Prokofiev's pigeons, 

Painted the colours of 

Gutter-spilt oil and 

Gentle ash, 

Pinprick the featureless

Pale cold sky when, 

As a flock– they all alight! 

A balletic mobile in 

Multiple dimensions, 

Their bellies, now sparkling 

White, like gems, in the 

Bay's reflected 

October light

Then gently, as if by some

Prearranged contract, 

Return, to rest, once again, 

On black slab rooftops, or

Tilted solar panels, puffed up, 

Crouched low, in the 

Cold sideway winds 

And patiently wait for the 

Next orchestral updraft, so this

Corps de ballet can begin, 

Once again. 

11.10.2025

Part of this overwhelming sense of doom I'm feeling, is that, in his last couple of years of life, after my mom had died, my dad was penniless too. Still, we sold what we could of the treasures my parents had accrued over a lifetime together, hoping to sustain him on a little more comfort, a little bit longer, but most of it– paintings and signed lithographs, Knoll chairs that are still in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and other examples of mid-century modern design was worthless to the capricious monster that is capitalism.  

After his middle-of-the-night bathroom falls that left him with a broken hip and a concussion, unable to remain in his home, he was shunted from hospital to hospital, and rehab center to rehab center. Even while on his deathbed, the convalescent center where he was staying called me daily, telling me that, because his insurance had lapsed, they were going to have to "release" him; in other words, kick him out onto the street. While the cancer spread through his crumbling bones, he, and I, prayed that it would finally take him more quickly, only so that he wouldn't have to die homeless. He begged me to help him die, but I was afraid. 

Most of you who knew me at the time might recall that in the midst of this terrible time, I suddenly had to leave him and return to New York, because my partner of 19 years, the love of my life, was suddenly dying of a cancer, none of us had even known she'd had, and on 2 November, 2 days before our anniversary, her heart stopped as I held her small, blue hand. Two days later, on our anniversary, I burried her.  

That afternoon, on our way back from the cemetery, my phone rang, and it was the facility where my dad was, once again, calling to see if I could cover his expenses, and threatening that if not, they were going to have to evict him that coming Monday. 

Thankfully, (I don't even remember how,) I was able to fenegel a few more "stays of execution", and on 27 February, 2023, shortly after his 89th birthday, penniless, and alone, my dad died. 

It's almost 3 years later, and I haven't recovered from a single aspect of the serial losses of my mom in 2020, my wife in 2022, my dad in 2023, my family home and most of the belongings within it, and my relationship with the wider world since the horrors of 7.10.

It all adds more than I can even begin to disseminate from the overwhelming, all encompassing sense of overwhelm I already experience as a neurodivergent, navigating the intricacies of my day to day world. 

Although never officially diagnosed, (because he was born in 1933,) my dad, like me, was autistic, and had crippling adhd. Like me, he was highly intelligent, an intellectual– boundlessly, passionately curious about the world around him, and unfortunately, completely useless when it came to surviving it.  

Throughout my life, we'd had an uneasy, and tumultuous relationship, but I loved him, and I wish more than anything I had understood him better; I wish I'd understood that he wasn't as constantly angry as he often seemed, he was panicked, and afraid, and because I often read his outbursts as mere desire for control, and a terrifying fury at me for not being more readily controllable, my own behaviour towards him was more often than not, cold.  

I'm so sorry dad.  

Once, at 17, following an unsuccessful suicide attempt, I was hospitalised in the psych unit of Miami Children's Hospital. My parents came to visit, and take me out for a meal, but in the car, we had a fight, and I lashed out at my dad, saying, "I don't want to be anything like you! You're nothing!". He said nothing back, but my mom later told me that after they'd dropped me off back at the hospital, crying, my dad had to pull over to the side of the road, and throw up.  

Again, I'm so sorry dad. I wish that I could go back in time and just hug you and tell you how much I really do love you.  

I suppose that that's the reality of karma; not only will I never be able to make ammends, but here I am, at 56, and apart from the cancer, (as far as I know, ) the threats that he escaped by dying, are the threats that will now most likely follow me for the remainder of my own life, and for the exact same reason: despite my cruel proclimation that day in the car, as it turns out, I am in fact, exactly like my dad.

09.10.2025

I'm beginning to trust that our living loved ones are coming home, and while I'm relieved, I'm finding it impossible to access anything approaching joy, or, for that matter, any kind of emotion at all.  

It makes no sense. It isn't because there's some level on which I'm disappointed, or worried, or trepidatious.. I'm none of these things. It doesn't seem to be attached to anything;

I just can't access any feelings at all, eventhough I want to.

I feel like something's deeply wrong with me. I feel alien. If this thing that I.. that WE have been waiting for now for 2 years, standing in bleeding, bare feet on broken glass, wanting with every fibre of our collective soul, if this can't elicit in me jubilation, and some kind of desire to connect and celebrate with my people, there's something deeply wrong with me.  

All I feel is tired. Tired to the point of apathy. 

But maybe that's not true. 

As I've said before, I often write as a form of therapy. It's a conversation I have with myself, and, writing this, I've come to suspect that something I said above is inaccurate: that my apathy can't be attributed to disappointment. I think it actually is.  

On some level.. no. On most levels, I feel that at this point, it matters so much less than it should. These poor men who've been held as some kind of horrible reserve bargaining chip, who've been tortured in ways that I don't want to imagine, even after having been released, returning to what's left of their lives, their communities, their families, I can't imagine that they'll ever be able to recapture the vital things that have been stolen from them, including the freedom of joy they may have had before that horrible day and the 734+ days thereafter. I can't trust that there's any way for them to ever feel unfettered hope, or innocence again. 

I know that there are those who'll invoke stories of survivors who'd rebuilt their lives after the Shoah, who will remind me that we Jews, we Israelis are a people of resilience, and I don't deny any of that, but at 56, I've been alive long enough to understand that so much of the resilience that's the world celebrates, is more cosmetic than not; the horrors we live through, never really leave us. We may surrender ourselves to performing recovery, rebuilding, "moving on", because we learn just how isolating trauma can be, and that if we ever want to connect with others again, to experience any kind of intimacy, we have no choice but to sublimate those parts of ourselves in order to make others comfortable, but in the end, this performance only serves to isolate us further, and we're left feeling that no one except for our demons will ever truly know us, ever again.  

I suppose it's all of this. It's undeniably a good thing, that they're coming "home", but I can't shake the deep awareness of the fact, that "home" will now forever remain only in the painful/sweet realm of nostalgia for them, and in that, I feel that there's really very little to celebrate at all.

7.10.2025: a recurring dream

It's strange how often I have the same- or almost same dream: I'm in New York, (which is also Miami; my parents are there, ) and I'm about to return to Israel. It's all of the emotions of wanting to get home, but feeling sad about leaving the people I love. 

And now it's 3:08 PM, and my flight is at 3:30, but I still haven't even packed yet, or figured out how I'm going to get to JFK, and in order to leave my house, I have to exit through the enormous, poorly lit, oddly esoteric shopping mall that takes up the first few, endless floors of my building.

When I get to the airport, I still have several knives in my backpack from when I went camping, and have to apologetically surrender them to the security guard. The terminal for El Al is impossibly far away, and involves a several-hours long walk to get to, parts of which are outside through deep sand, up mountain sides, beside furious seasides, and/or through rainstorms. I get lost. Several times. Every time, the way I have to walk is different. I ask directions, from several different people, and the response is almost always a vaguely, pointed finger. 

Eventually I make it to my gate, and the plane is there and I'm allowed to board, eventhough I'm 5 or 6 hours late.  

The inside of the plane looks like an MTA Subway car: long, light blue plastic benches that line the walls and face one another across a central aisle, and there are adverts that line the walls where the overhead carry-on compartment doors should be.

...

When we land, I get off the plane and go upstairs, exiting into my twilit neighbourhood. Before heading home, I decide to stop off by the market- an outdoor bazaar of winding rows of miniature circus tent like booths, that sell everything from zucchini and canned tuna, to dreamcakes and concepts; a place where day and night, the present, future and past, shift and change from booth to booth. I've many friends who work there, and whilst away, I'd missed them. In this place, it's not only time that shifts randomly, but I, and the rest of the market's denizens seem to randomly shift and change form: more or less human one moment, an idea without physicality the next.  

I'd missed this whilst away; shedding form is like taking off a sweat soaked, too tight bra whose underwires have been torturing me all day, and finally being able to take a deep breath.  

I'm finally home, and it feels good.

16.07.2021

If ever I grow 

Tired of softness

Dress my corpse in 

Calico cloth, and

Plant me, deep 'neath the 

Cottonwood tree.

02.10.2025: Yom Kippur, Haifa. (a Dodoitsu)

Bright, open kitchen window

Pigeons squabble in a tree; 

Grey feathers fall. No sounds of

Traffic anywhere. 

26.09.2025

At horizon's soft, smudged edge, 

Grey bay fades into sky

No division is visible, 

Nor is any necessary.

           "Hamayim vehashamayim"

           ("The Waters, and The Skies")

           As in heaven, so on earth

           And so, it is prescribed. 

24.09.2025

In this ramshackled 

Tumbledown wreck of a home,

The sun yet shines bright through 

Black, brok'n windows

Cracks in the floor, hard won by persistence have 

Given way to 

Soft carpet of green 

High up in one corner, of what 

Once was a kitchen

A nest, from which 

Boisterous demands are made

And surrendered to, with 

Patience and love, while there

Hangs in another, 

A hive, hard at work—

     An entire civilisation 

     Buzzing with creation.

In this blight on the neighbourhood, 

This blemish of decay, there is

Beauty, still

                    born, everyday. 

On Train Platform 2

"Chaya baseret" the 

Chayalet whispered to her 

Friend as the two walked 

Past, and I thought, 

"What an amazing 

Nom de plume that would make."

08.09.2025

There's something inappropriate in 

How life goes on

Just hours after a pigua

A robocall from my kupa

Horns beeping impatiently outside, and

Garbage trucks. I

Can't relate. It feels rude, 

This inconsistency

Grotesque to refuse

Solidarity. It should stop

"Lysistrada"

Storytime: about that time when, as a hooker, I came up with the idea for the "Lysistrada Mutual Care Collective Fund".

Yet another set of draconian anti-sex work bills (SESTA and FOSTA,) had just passed. These bills effectively eliminated, or at the very least, greatly hampered our abilities to advertise more safely online, and even worse, they caused the shut down of a website that we had used to check if a potential client had had any reports of violence against a worker in the past, placing us all in even greater danger. 

Many of us were having a difficult time adapting to these changes, and the increased dangers in which they'd resulted. I had never been very good at working online, and took these changes as an opportunity to start working on the street, or, "the stroll". At the time, I'd been volunteering for the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Coalition doing street outreach, and I often used my HRC bag and supplies, as a sort of cover, ie, if I was questioned by the cops, I was in the area doing outreach, not working.  

During this time, I got to meet workers that either hadn't fit into the more privileged circles of "sugar babies", and "escorts" I'd known, from our "sex workers' pot lucks", (yes, it was a thing, ) or who, like me, had had to adapt, and begin freestyling in hotel bars, or working on the stroll. 

I'd organised a biweekly support group for workers, and one night, listening to one woman's story, I had had an idea: "We should organise a group that workers would pay into, whatever we can each afford, sort of like what Workman's Circle used to be, and if a member of the community becomes ill, or is in jail or prison, or gets beaten up, or raped, and can't work, the fund could be there to help them."

Immediately, the idea was popular, and it was decided that in addition, we'd organise child care, clothing swaps, and collect, and distribute harm reduction supplies.  

I'll unabashedly admit that it was a wonderful idea, and really, one of the highest points in my life, but unfortunately, as an Autistic, I've always missed out on signs of impending danger, and the buzzards were already circling.  

As soon as we'd gotten off the ground, a woman I'd been dating, Lily, approached us, telling us that someone with whom she'd done "doubles", a Dominican woman named "Bambi", who, like her, was a single mother trying to get custody of her child, had been arrested, and was in Ryker's.

The group was abuzz with our first mission! Bambi was going to need around 14,000.00 for lawyer's fees and miscellaneous other costs of survival. 

As the group got busy crowdfunding, I began to become suspicious: Lily was acting weird, and parts of her story were inconsistent. 

Knowing that whether my suspicions were correct or not, it would be the end of Lily's and my friendship/dating, I informed the rest of the board of my feeling, that we were being scammed.

As it turned out, I was right. "Bambi" had been wholly a product of Lily's manufacture. 

What I'd not counted on, was that eventhough I was the one to bring her scam to the group's attention, I would be scapegoated, and  blamed for having brought her in, in the first place, and I was ousted. 

It later, it came to my attention that a worker who lives in Toronto, who was a rabid antisemite, (and with whom Lily had had an affair,) had been hard at work spreading rumours about me in the community, and when a friend of mine raised the fact that my ousting had been done in a particularly cruel and unfair way, (there was a lot of overlap between the sex work and Queer communities, and when I'd been ousted from Lysistrada, I also lost most of my access in the Queer community,) she was told, "well, that zio bitch is problematic, anyway, fuck her". 

I tried to kill myself with a Xanax overdose. I'd started feeling like shit all the time, physically months before, and had recently been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, and, having survived my latest attempt, I went to bed, and didn't get up for 16 months.

To the best of my knowledge, Lysistrada still exists, and does some vitally important work, but from what I understand, I've been written out of the organisation's story. 

24.08.2025 ii

I've followed you here 

Barefoot and dry  

Collecting the stones

You've dropped behind.

24.08.2025

We are haunted women.

We carry our dead mothers' backs 

fatted slabs         strapped

slapdash, stapled, or

Pinned to our own. Only mine 

I have chosen to surgically graft;

it could never have been 

any other way. 

Brown

Brown.. Brown..

Settle down, lest you drown, or

Run aground 

A moment's whiff 

Might find you nude

But not for lacking

Any good. Brown?

Brown, settle down, or

I can see you

run aground

But as you gaze

Out past the mound

Enjoin the crowd,

"Come!" Bid them, "bow"

Brown.. Hey, Brown,

Look around

Your walls have all but

Fallen down. 

Pothos

My Golden Pothos strives so hard, to 

Grace the sun-dappled Persian rug

With elegant tendrils, she senses her world, 

Exploring beyond her small side-table

It's almost as if she'd no idea, that 

Once her soft leaves reach the floor 

I'll cut them off

Replant them anew

Maybe in another room

Beneath another warm, bright window 

Where the process will begin again

This is how it has always been 

Having been born, was the primary sin. 

14.08.2025

I think I'm dying, and

Not in the way that we all are

But maybe

Exactly in the same way that we

All Are. 

I think I'm dying, and

I can't explain, but it's a 

Sense of the end of things, and it's quiet, 

But nudge-y

I think I'm dying

And, the

Air outside is dense and

Hot, and almost orange like gaseous lava,

And from my window today, I can 

Barely even make out the Krayot across the Bay 

I think I'm dying

But right now, ice is 

Noisily cracking in a sweating glass beside me, and my 

Cold coffee is just, *chef's kiss* 

And as of yesterday, my 

Nails are all painted "Cherry-Pop Red", (both hands and feet!)

I think I'm dying

But this morning I got a 

Text, that some package from Temu  is 

Awaiting my pick-up at Hop Li, and 

On my livingroom wall, 

The sun, through my partially shuddered window has drawn a

Perfect rendering of the tree outside, 

Where the fruit bats hang, and besides, 

Just yesterday, in Shufersal, 

I finally bought a new bag of a 

Shabbat candles– a hundred of them

They only last 4 hours, but

Who'm I trying to kid? 

These days I've unfailingly

Eaten, and am in bed, long before 

They'll burn themselves out.

I think

I'm dying, but maybe 

I still have some surprises left to look forward to,  and

Even if this annoying sense is right,  and 

I am dying, 

My plants still all need watering

This summer's heat has been

Hard on them, too. 

Things That Were Left Behind

All these things that were

Left behind

My mother-in-law's wedding ring,  

(a strange, egg-shaped silver thing) 

My Dad's watches, and 

The fat black fountain pen that always leaked     

The Beatles records

For whom at least one, 

They'd stood on line 

On a Winter, Pittsburgh sidewalk 

Waiting to buy

(my Mom's fat belly 

Protruding from her coat

already with me 

And this poem inside)

Books whose spines had been

Silent friends

Eventhough their stories, re-

mained obscured

Oil paintings, and sketches 

And a brick-red bust 

From my Mom's 

and/or Dad's university friends

These things, too carelessly, swept aside

Breadcrumbs that I've 

Left behind, can 

Never again 

Lead me back

And there is no "back" 

And at any rate

were all too sweet

for the birds to resist

Or the transatlantic winds 

To allow to persist.

01.08.2025 (A Dream)

The grey Bay stalks the

Ir HaTachtit

Clandestine, in threadbare 

Slippers, she creeps

The vigilant pigeons–

Our sentinals, all sleep

As the waters invade 

And the city sinks. 

25.07.2025

The pigeons that pepper the

Flat, white roof 

Outside my open kitchen window, 

Are lying down in the 

Afternoon sun. Perplexed,

And maybe, a little concerned, 

Seek out the oracle, 

To see what she knows:

"Hey Google," I say, "what does it mean 

When an entire flock of pigeons

Lie down in the afternoon sun?" 

But disappointingly, 

There's no great mystery,

Sometimes pigeons just lie down

And there is no storm 

Coming in from the West, 

Nor will the Ayatollah, or  the Houtis 

Disturb our Shabbat.

At least not as far as these birds are concerned

The pigeons are simply lying down; 

But here's the thing:  when 

You live in a world, where

Fate turns quickly, through both

Nature, and man, something as simple 

As pigeons loafing on rooftops 

Might seem like a sign

If you believe in that sort of thing. 

Mother

I'd loved you even

Before we had met,

Outside my dreams, and so,

I go seeking,

Furiously scratching in

All your corners

Turning over old

Piles of dust, and

Sifting through them,

For flecks of the stuff

I'd known so well, as

What made up

The bricks of the cities

My mother had built,

Even before I

Was part of her dreams.

Aba

 Aba,

Those sepia days you spent

Running, scraped knees

A "vilde chaya" on the streets

Of Squirrel Hill, I keep,

In an old, brown, velvet pouch

Tucked safe Into the space behind my eyes.

It's been there all these years, while so much

Else has been left behind: a kind

Of portable familiarity that

You once gave me.

But Aba,

I want you to know, that

I have finally found my own

A million miles and a

Thousand years from that

Butterscotch amber hued world that you’d

Once laid across my shoulders,

(I danced around in it, showing it off

Like a showgirl, given a

New fox stole.)

I think if you were here, you would

Say I'm weird,

But I swear, there are moments,

I can recall your childhood

More clearly than my own, and

I can't help but wonder: what, if anything

Does it say, that

So much of who I am

Was built of these bricks that

You had laid?

07.07.2025

There's a pull to this hole

A gravitational pull, 

As strong as any 

Massive collapsed star. 

It works like this: I want to write

I NEED to write, but 

To get to the place where I

Need to be, demands of me 

A certain mind

A certain, funny kind of mood, 

That can digest all the best of my world 

Stripping off parts,

("Spaghettified", they call it,) until 

I'm stretched so thin you

Might not even recognise me.

But ironically enough, it's

Only then, when I'm stretched out thin

A streak of dust, that the

Flecks of gold

Laid bare, their conceit 

Can reflect the light

And how brilliant they shine. 

 

06.07.2025

I loved New York.

I loved it in the kind of way that one loves a best friend who's always been there, and who conceivably always will be. I loved the familiarity of everything, how this city that to those who don't live there must feel a bit like a beautiful but unpredictable beast, but to me, each block driving up Third Avenue felt as familiar as my own living room.

I loved New York, but I needed to unstick myself from the trajectory I was on.

I felt as if I was on that carnival ride, I think it's called the "Log Flume", where, you sit in a hollowed-out log, and instead of wheels on a track, you float through a trough that's filled with water, and it splashes you as you go.

My life up until I left, had begun to feel every bit like this ride, except that at the end, rather than the de-boarding platform where other, hot, impatient carnival goers were lined up waiting to ride, there was a sawmill, and I was moving closer and closer to that spinning blade everyday.

I love New York, and in my mind, I can see so many intimate details from my life, from each trodden-on gum stain and sidewalk crack through which I'd pass on my way to the Whole Foods on the corner at E 88th & 3rd, (that had taken over the commercial space that had been vacated by:

1. a small health food store,

2. a dialysis clinic, and

3. an after school tutoring business,)

or the Café d'Alsace on Second that had moved from the beautiful beaux artes building where I'd sit and watch the foot traffic while I drank my bowls of café au lait, (that has tragically, since been demolished,) to the spot, two storefronts up, where Elaine's used to be. I know which bushes in the church yard on E 88th between Second & First bear the most gorgeous flowers, and by instinct, on what day after Winter (or in a few cases, in the midst thereof,) that they'd come to life.

I know intimately, the aisles of the Fairway to which I'd go, all the way downtown, just for their Israeli food and gluten-free sections. I know the rows and corners of its produce section and exactly the spot to find fresh, fragrant, feathery bunches of dill, all slightly damp, and wrapped at their stems in a taupe rubber band.

I love New York, but when I see the same things every day, year after year year after year, I begin to think the same kinds of thoughts every day, year after year, and I look for ways to burst free of that cycle; sometimes, the only one that felt accessible to me was death.

I love New York, but I wasn't ready to die, so I left, to see new things, trip on different sidewalk cracks, learn new supermarkets and love different flowers, and to think different thoughts. To write different poems and stories and confessional essays.

Once, many, many years ago, while standing on 14th St, at Union Square South, I wrote a poem about the Zen maxim that says, "a man cannot step into the same river twice, for rivers flow, and so it's never truly the same river, and men change, think new thoughts, have new impressions; cells die and new cells are born, so even from moment to moment, a man is not the same man."

The poem was far shorter, and more importantly, distilled than this description of it, or the explanation I just gave, but then, it was a poem, and I mention it because, I love New York, and I miss her in ways that I'll never get over, regardless of what I tell you as I shrug my shoulders, cock my head and raise my eyebrows in that stoic gesture that says, "whadayagonnado?"

I love New York, but I'd begun to write the same poems over and over again, and to try to wet my feet in the same water from which they'd originally sprung.

I love New York, but I had gotten from her, all that I knew how.

I love New York, but it was time to leave.

It was time to leave, and so, I left, but also, I'm no longer young, and so, I returned to a river I'd also greatly loved, and as it turns out, the maxim holds true: it's not the same river, and I am most certainly not the same woman.  

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 that I ate this morning in the mamad,

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

Dvora had set before us–

A small, sweet, refreshment 

between the booms, is

also a poem: 

Upon consuming its 

sugary flesh in three bites, and 

at a loss for what to

do with its stone,

I tucked it, safely 

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

White nights

Of red alerts

Necessitate strong black coffee

And cheap cigarettes

(Even if it's years, since the 

Last time you smoked.)

This is no time for slow

Sidewalk cappuccinos 

Or thinking of your health, or the

State of your manicure, 

Instead, catch naps, or sleep in 'til two

Eat cheese or a pint of Ben & Jerry's for dinner

And take pleasure where you can

Have sex, even if 

Only with yourself

And only so long as

You can throw on a robe

And get down to the shelter

In a minute or less.

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.

Birch Blatten

When, in the path of a glacier, you built your town 

You must have thought 

You'd had 10,000 years

But 10,000 years comes before you know it

And anyways, things happen 

To speed the course of events 

(You couldn't have forseen, for instance, 

Climate change, at the time)

I hope you understand

This isn't an admonishment 

I have built my life

In much the same way. 

28.05.2025

You asked me

To wait for you 

In my smooth, modal dress

The one, you'd always said, just shyly seemed to note the valleys of my body–

The dips above my hips

The curve of my lower back

You asked

That I wait for you 

In our golden chair

Which made its way to me

All the way across an ocean

And a sea

All the while, the 

Soft scarlet throw sent to us by my mother, still miraculously 

Crumpled upon its seat

You want to know

If I'll wait for you, now, 

As the evening sun falls- surrendered to the blackening hills of the Galil

And I will

I will wait, 

Red lines, now drawn 

Down the delicate pale of each arm. 

09.05.2025

So, I'm standing in the tortilla section at Shufersal, looking a little lost when a woman approaches, and asks, "&/'@&] tortillas?" 

I take out one earbud, (ironically at the moment Joe Strummer is singing "I'm lost in the supermarket, I can no longer shop happily",) look at her and respond, 

 אאאם, סליחה, אני מחפשת טורטיות ללא גלוטן 

She looks at me as if I've just asked her where I might find special vibrators for ducks, so I shake my head and explain, 

"אאם, לא שמעתי מה אמרת, הקשבתי למוזיקה".

She nods, still looking at me as if I'm not someone she'd necessarily trust around innocent waterfowl, and repeats, 

"?יש לך ויזה שלנו"

I respond,

".לא, ולא רוצה, תודה" 

and quickly stick Joe back in my ear.  

Finally done with my shopping, I make my way to the self-checkout. By now, my tracklist has switched to "Sandanista!" and Mick Jones is singing "Somebody got murdered", a little too cheerfully, I think. 

I finish bagging my groceries, and am regretting having bought the 4-pack of 1.5 litre bottles of Schweppes on a day when I didn't bring my עגלה, when the woman who oversees the self check-out bay comes over to me, holding a pen. I figure she wants to check my receipt, so I hand it to her, but she doesn't take it.  

I take out an earbud, looking at her quizzically. 

"?יש לך ויזה שלנו" 

she asks.

".לא, ואני לא רוצה" 

I respond, demonstrably annoyed, struggling with my heavy shopping bags. 

She steps in front of me, and in Russian accented Hebrew says, 

"?למה את לא רוצה"

"!סתם, ככה, אוקיי? אני לא רוצה"

I respond, and replace my earbud, before struggling towards the escalator like an aardvark, trying to do the job of two packmules who are out sick with mono. 

Later that evening, I'm sound asleep, when I suddenly wake in a cold sweat. It's pitch dark in my room, and I reach out a probing hand, looking for my phone.  

Squinting, I see that it's 03:43. I sigh in exasperration, and allow the hand holding my phone to drop back onto the bed, but in the midst of its arc, there in its blue light, I see something that instantly terrifies me; peering at me, out of the dark, is a face. 

Panicked, I turn on my lamp, and as soon as I do, I see that there is not just one, but at least 16 older Russian women standing around my bed. They're all wearing Shufersal uniforms, and holding clipboards, and in a perfectly timed, heavily Russian-accented chorus, they speak as one: 

 "?יש לך ויזה שלנו"

That's when I blacked out.

14.04.2025

My lover comes

Uninvited 

Unannounced, and 

Always for an indeterminate stay

And I– good hostess that I am, 

(Or hungry, if the truth be told) 

Put fresh linens on the bed

Caress her face

Search her eyes for the stories that she won't tell 

I tell her how she's the

Only one who truly knows me, 

Ask her if she's planning to stay this time

Swear eagerly, promises I don't yet want to keep

Just to know the body that lies with mine

This familiarity, 

A little longer

But as usual, she says 

"That's up to you."

We both know this script by now.

I bury myself in sad poems

Sleep too much

In days 

(Or weeks, or maybe even hours,) 

Again, we'll go our separate ways, and still, 

I fall asleep in her arms, 

My head on her breasts

This heart that I've known as long as my own 

Throbs, strong against my cheek

And when I wake, she's already gone.

I take my morning pills.

Make my strong black coffee. 

I know as well as she, that

The day will come

Neither of us knows when

When I'll invite her to stay

And I'll mean it,

but until then

I've so much to do.

So much to do.

05.04.2025

What then

To be when you easily see through the mask of this world

That purpose is a scam

Fulfillment, an empty promise to keep you hard at work? 

What then 

When you've examined it all and found

The columns just don't add up

They can't

(Their values were lies all along)

And what then

When you've reduced your old life to a

Pile of soft ash on a yellow sheet what then? 

What then, when old demons return with warm arms to embrace you

Now that you realise they were

Friends all along

What then? 

What then. 

20.02.2025

Do you know what it's like to be 

in love with 

a place and its people? 

And I don't mean any mundane,

Ordinary kind of love, but 

The kind for which you'd willingly lie down your life

At any given moment

Or perhaps, even more bravely,

Persist in enduring it, despite all the pain. 

I mean 

the kind of love where you can't bear to be away

Even for a month

And when life makes such demands 

Even if only for two weeks, 

You spend every moment in

Longing, dream every night

And each day of returning.

Despite all the ways 

In which she breaks your heart,

And sometimes your back, 

Or even your soul. 

And while the world,  

Those who've

Never belonged to a place 

Who've no idea how to belong 

(Only to subdue)

Bay cruelly from all outside corners

Taunt you and mock your pain

You know something that they don't: 

You could never be torn from this place 

Because you are this place

And she is you.

25.01.2005, NY, II

I don't know if it's a cruelty that only once we reach the second half (third third?) of our lives do we learn how precious and special it is to be alive. I don't know if it's a cruelty, because there is so little left to enjoy, or if this is a necessary requirement for this appreciation to spring forth. I know that there's no way to convince the young of this truth, (is that the cruelty?) and that it's something all who experience it must arrive at of their own volition.  

This week while cleaning, I found my "suicide stash", the bag of narcotics I'd horded, and had once upon a time intended to ingest, ending my bodily experience of this world. 

Rather than secreting it into one of the boxes that are even now heading towards my new home,  I discarded it. There wasn't even a sniff of hesitancy.  

While a time may yet come where impossible circumstances rear their head once again, forcing me to consider my options for a peaceful exit, at the moment I'm coasting on the fact that rather than give in last time, I chose to be brave and do the scariest thing I've ever done.  If I did it once, I believe I can do it again.  

As I said, life is precious. 

For fuck's sake, live.

25.01.2025, NY

As I prepare to leave this apartment again, (now, for the last time,) a stone sits heavily in my throat. This entire time that I've been here, that stone has been with me, but I've done everything within my power to distract myself from it, to ignore it lest it cause me to stumble in my tracks, but I'm afraid that today, as I close that heavy, grey door behind myself for the last time, it will grow out of all control and break me apart.  

I'm thinking right now about that meme I posted, twice I think, that warned- "when you leave a place, leave in the fastest way possible". I'm paraphrasing of course, and I can't even remember who it was that had said it, but it was deeply cathartic and seminal at the time, and at the moment I appreciate the sentiment more than I can express.

I won't miss this stale, suffocating place. What I'll miss is the life I once had here, and it's easy- through the cataract of nostalgia, to mistake one for the other, and already, although my brain is resolved, my heart is a little confused.  

Inevitably, I'll invent regrets because that's what I, gluttonous emotional masochist that I am, do; I'll invent them and torture myself by blowing them out of all proportion, because what I truly miss is something that can't be recaptured- that sense of safety, and warmth, and completeness that I had with Carrie. I'll pepper myself with these unjust regrets because regret suggests control surrendered, and control surrendered can theoretically be recaptured, but this is a lie. The past is gone. Nostalgia is- not only blind, but treacherous and misguided.  

My new life- my new imperfect, insecure, exciting, warm, wanting, fulfilling, beautiful life, is waiting for me, and all of it is on the other side of this apartment's door.

24.12.2024

The first time I landed in Israel, I dropped off my enormous duffel bag out of which I'd live for the next 14 months or so at the moshav, changed into fresh clothes, and "tremped" my way out to the main road where I could catch a bus to Tel Aviv. 

As we left the more rural areas of agricultural fields and got closer to the city, I began to see more and more signs in Hebrew. 

Maybe it was the exhaustion, (I hadn't slept in over 24 hours,) but I began to sob. For the first time in my life, I was home, and I was in love.  

This last April when I returned after all these years, I didn't cry. I didn't really have any powerful reaction at all. In fact, everything felt completely "normal" to me; I never encountered that blissful shock to the system that had once felt like the liberation of shedding old skin. 

It's late December, and that moment still hasn't come. Everything is still just normal, almost boringly so. And yet, as I sit outside on a grey, blustery, Haifa winter day, my face gently lashed by the harbour rain, I can't help but feel that this... THIS, is incredibly special: this normalcy that I can almost take for granted. In fact, I've never felt this normal before.  

13.12.2024

In the centre of Haifa, on Horev Street, there's an old, abandoned Bauhaus building. I think it's a house, or at least it was at some point. It lives on a hill above, and removed from the street behind the privacy of a rough stone wall. 

She looks like she's silently witnessed a hundred-million moments, notable, mundane, and everything in between.  

There's something I need you to understand, since you've never been here before: on these dark, cool nights, especially the nights of the new or old moon, the softest black, velvet blanket lies over the city- freezing us all in this timeless space. If you find yourself here in these special moments, you might notice how we, (I'm including you in this,) become ghosts, maybe even haunting our own lives from a separated dimension.  

I love to walk these dream streets, to hear the baying jackals and the rustling leaves‐ magic that even the occasional ambulance siren or revving scooter can't diminish.

I want to tell you why I've brought you here, to this spot, to stand on this sidewalk with me beside the busy boulevard, and stare at this house. Really, I want to tell you a secret; are you listening? This house terrifies me, but not for the reasons you might think.  

I'm terrified, because I want to go inside. I want to go inside and become part of its story, the soul that looks out from its black windows, but really, this too is not what scares me. What does scare me, is that if I get inside, I might discover that I feel nothing, that it's simply another old, soulless shell. I'm afraid of losing the gorgeous possibilities, the stories I've told myself in one awful, banal, wonderless moment. 

Perhaps it's better to linger outside, to press my fingertips on the rough, stone wall. To continue to love her from this sidewalk by the noisy boulevard.

05.12.2024 : Gratitude

And when I die

They may say that I just

Never amounted to much:

I never sought fame,

Or won some big game, or

Caused new blooms to bud,

But I have saved lives as anonymous as my own,

And I have leapt– blind

Into frontiers unknown.

I have loved, and I have lost

And I've learned when to forgive,

But most important of all

Whether noticed by others or not

Not once have I ever forgotten to live. 

26.11.2024

Uch.

The sink is full of dishes again and I have no energy to deal with them.

It's not emotional this time, 

Stam,

I have no energy. 

I could really sleep all day if only 

I didn't need to get to the Misrad Hapanim

And my manicure is chipped

(Only 5 days in! Can you believe it?)

And I've run out of food, and 

I'm sick of all the offerings on Wolt.

I push down the switch on the electric kettle

Pour the coarse brown granules of instant 

Directly from their jar into a tall glass 

"too much", I think, and pour even more. 

Outside, the bright cold light is still 

As it lies across the silver surface of the sea

And if I crane my neck, I can see the white, snow covered top of Har Hermon.

18.11.2024

The Haifa sky is roaring tonight, except

Neither rockets, nor jets, but the

Most delicious storm is rolling through. 

My eyes burn a bit and I want to sleep, but I'm

Loathe to miss even a single crack or 

Lash of rain against my window.

No matter what, it's always been too long. 

In NY, maybe once every few years we'd get a windowpane shaker, but even those were

Nothing compared to those daily storms that 

Marked my Florida summer youth.  

Age twelve, I'd run, 

Ill advised out to soggy golf course across the street 

To twirl in the drops,

 catch

As many as I could in my curls

My dad used to say I was a duck. 

(He wasn't half wrong. )

But now I'm being silly

Drowning in nostalgia when right now

Right here — 

The cracks and lashes already decrease in frequency.

Oh, now, regrets:

Already, it all sounds so much further away.

Kintsugi

How many breaks can a bowl endure?

Even if beautifully repaired each time

With lines of gold 

An elegant map of its traumas,

With each new fall, 

And more lines added

How long before it

All breaks down? 

A memorial cast in gold exists only for others to appreciate. 

Pompeii

Already, I am a ghost amidst the ruins.

No one who even would have cared I'd ever lived remains. 

My memories, sensations, passions, dreams,

Words –

All turned to ash

Already blown away. 

20.08.2024

On the edge of a drowsy afternoon nap

Rumbles– made softer by distance and water

And were this not August, in Northern Israel 

They might even be thunder 

(indistinguishable but for context)

I close my eyes, and drift off into them

Something like the sea:  something

Bigger than me.

05.10.24

7.10 type 

Nightmares all night.  

First, red alerts, not 

terribly terrifying, just 

Missiles overhead, 

We'd seen this all before, so

We sought shelter, 

Good citizens, even as we 

Watched them magically turn into 

Chrysanthemums in the high sky

Reduced to an annoyance. 

Even a banality. 

It happened again

Fifteen minutes later

This time we stood,  under

A concrete overhang 

These were further away

Some even took pictures with their phones

And once again, but 

This time, something different:

Against the backdrop of exploding stars, 

Parachuters drifted

Softly to the ground. 

We'd seen this scene before, so 

Those few who had guns, 

Stayed behind, and 

Fired at the sky, 

While the rest of us ran to find

Someplace to hide

Strange places: 

An airplane bathroom

An overhead baggage bin

(I don't know why we were on a plane,) and

Others that only existed in 

Dream logic, but

One by one 

(or two, or three at a time) 

The monsters found us

Even coaxing us out, through

Reassurances, we'd 

Come to no harm

But we knew better

Having seen this before

Remembering those who still

Languish under Gaza

We knew

Our nightmares were just beginning.

..........

*Written while half-asleep, in a bomb shelter, after having been woken out of a deep sleep by Homefront Command.

27.09.2024

Not ten seconds 

Past ten minutes 

After the last audible blast,

Already, outside

Trucks beep as they reverse

Wolt scooters rev to life

(At first, I swear, they sound almost like azakot)

Horns blare, and

Impatient workers shout over the din 

As if nothing of potential great consequence had just happened

As if all of this was completely normal-

Our fragile lives, dependent 

Upon a technology that 

Still feels like a miracle

And although I, a sceptic, 

Do not believe in miracles, 

Here I am, now 

Showered and dressed

Legs tucked beneath me, hot

Coffee on the couch

And from my window

The bay looks particularly blue today

Stark Mediterranean contrast to the

White roofs that lay like low tables between us

And the red and white 

Candystriped arms of the bay port cranes

Turn the world from my window into 

"le Tricolore"

I pour a second cup from my Moka pot

And turn up The Beatles

To dance with myself 

The small, white puffs 

That had punctuated the sky

Have already dissipated 

No longer distinguishable from

Ordinary clouds.

Inbar Frishman

Friday, 27 September, 2024

09:23hr, Haifa

25.09.2024 II

Up here, on Carmel

Above Haifa Bay

The early Fall wind is a 

Loud, yowling banshee

Poking long fingers through cracks 

And cracked windows

Below in the street

And under the cars 

Heat cats 

Join in on her chorus

(Out of sync)

But Boisterous as Berlioz'

"L'imperiale" !

25.09.2024

Just now, I ran to do my 

Sink full of dishes 

It's been building, and 

Haunting me, this task, 

For days, but

Having heard Al Adha through my bathroom's open window,

I thought, "Maybe a break in the uncertainty 

Before the alarms might 

Abruptly wail again

And I'd have to abandon my task, and run 

To the place where I've done so much waiting of late."  

But also, 

It's a noisy task-

Doing the dishes. 

Apart from the sound of the running water, there's the 

Claques and din of wet dishes colliding

I've been afraid, you see, I'd thought

I might miss the alarms- they're not

Always that audible, but

Emboldened by the

Thought– "they'll be busy praying"

I set out to conquer my

Own Mt Everest.

Whoever would have thought that

Doing the dishes

Would become a task I looked forward to?

26.08.2024

I've just woken up after far too little, poor quality sleep, to reports of the suicide of another Nova survivor, and already, the day has its cold, clawed hand wrapped around my thoracic spine.  

I can't believe it's been almost a year. 

In 40 days, it will be a year.

A year of our burnt, crushed and crumbling innards struggling to keep us alive, while the world mocked us. 

A year of waiting for the pain to lessen– even only a little bit. 

A year where our souls have transformed into something we'd never thought we'd own in these generations,

And now, another family's first year has been reset to zero, where it all begins again.

And I can't keep up with the dishes in the sink. 

And the scrubby sponge I replaced just last week already smells sour.

And I– 

I have to shower, get dressed and do my makeup so I can get to the lawyer's office, 

but the gravity of the day 

Is nothing compared to that of the void.  

I swim furiously against it, in the 

Non-substance of hypoxic air.