2024 Chronicle
Here, spring flowers bloom.
Each day, new petals emerge—
camellias, roses, azaleas.
In Gaza olive groves are crushed.
Smashed olives strew the ground.
I rise in the morning, brew my tea,
make toast, fry the eggs.
We wait hours for a kilo of flour.
School children wait at the bus stop.
There is no childhood.
We measure summer days by the weather:
this day hot, this one rainy, this one foggy.
If there is sun, we cannot see it.
The sky obscured
by helmets, uniforms, boots.
We make dates with friends,
gather with family.
The hours blur. Each day,
we bury uncles and neighbors.
In autumn, we stroll familiar streets,
crunch leaves underfoot.
Another intersection is erased,
street signs, landmarks erased.
Day turns to night,
and night to day.
What is night? What is day?
I fall asleep in the quiet dark.
Sirens wail all night.
There is no silence.
Dreams crack my mind open.
I am a tent that catches fire.
Inside
Inside the cavity inside myself.
No need to strike a match or burn candles.
Just don silk pajamas, conjure the image of a man I’ve never touched.
Turn out the lights of houses. Turn off the stars. Quiet the music. Let darkness move in.
I will tell myself I am beautiful. I will feel my body make its rhythm.
Let the children sleep and the crickets sing.
Let me feel the contours of the inner walls, touch the lips until they weep like rain.
Let the dishes stay in the sink all night. Let the phone ring.
Contact
Washington, DC, April 2020
i
Before dawn coming out of dream the wind so strong it nearly knocked down the oak
I drew back from the window afraid the glass might shatter
ii
a few things remain there is still rain tulips blooming scarlet opening in sun and closing in dark
there is a guitar strumming
the streets are empty but for a siren screeching
iii
remember there were places to go state lines to cross new cities to visit
there were markets we browsed the stalls chatted with vendors thumbed through fabrics
iv
remember communal worship Torah carried through the pews we touched it and kissed our tallit passed the spice box hand to hand
v
the shaking of hands kissing of cheeks a pat on the back a high five
girls playing cat’s cradle passing the string through each other’s hands
Yvette Neisser is the author of two poetry collections, Iron into Flower (2022) and Grip (2011 Gival Press Poetry Award). Her translations from Spanish include South Pole/Polo Sur by María Teresa Ogliastri and Difficult Beauty: Selected Poems by Luis Alberto Ambroggio. Her poems, translations, and essays have appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus, Tikkun, Virginia Quarterly Review, 101 Jewish Poems for the Third Millennium (anthology), and Split This Rock’s The Quarry. Founder of the DC-Area Literary Translators Network, she has taught writing at The George Washington University and The Writer’s Center (Bethesda, MD).