Back to Issue Three

 

Two Poems by Gail Newman

Flight

A bearded violinist, green-faced goats in Ariel flight,

topsy-turvy wooden houses air-born

 

above the blistered world, why do I feel

they are singing?

 

The windows are open, little mouths of light

that pour through as stars pour through darkness,

 

clouds above rooftops like tilted hats,

and in the window a woman leans out, her breasts

 

on the window frame, arms folded, smiling.

Why smile while the world shifts

 

and furniture tumbles, and men

wear the faces of mules?

 

Chagall’s father worked like a galley-slave.

His mother sold groceries—potatoes, salt—from home.

 

During the war, Chagall painted Jesus on the cross.

I am crucified like Jesus...I feel like I did when I was a boy,

 

in front of butchers’ windows, looking in at the calves, still alive,

lying beside the butcher’s hatchets and knives.

 

He painted the town, the cow, the rooster on the roof,

crowing, and the blue-legged chickens.

 

There, on Pokrovskaja Street, I was born for the second time,

hunchbacked villagers, herrings, green Jews, aunts and uncles...

 

lovers rising above the town, the flower

of the bride’s face, color descending like stars.

My Mother’s Necklace

The silver, if it is silver,

is tarnished. From the chain

hangs a heart, crudely carved,

whose center holds a star,

initials on either side—C-N—

What do they stand for?

Not my parents’ names—Morris, Felice.

A date—16-1—my mother’s birthday,

46—the year I was born. And on the back,

words I can’t decipher—Polish words,

a language, my mother said, that could break

your tongue—or your body—if you

are Jewish—and that year—1946—

after the war, the man you meet

who wants to marry you gives you a heart

forged by hand, from who knows what—

some old, discarded spoon taken

from someone’s mouth, with a metallic

smell, like earth after rainfall,

when the world is washed clean

and the leaves have ceased

their shivering fall.