This poem was originally published in April, 2007, in the Spring/Summer 2007 print edition of Zeek. Our print edition features original articles, essays, poems, and art, much of which never makes it to the online edition. To subscribe, visit www.zeek.net/buy
Because only our bodies were inclined to speak,
other talk was cruel, incidental.
As if the wrong station got on the air
after hours glued to one vital conversation,
then static, a frantic twist of the dial to locate
the wave again. When we sang in ecstatic silence
skin was liquid, walls concave, sonorous.
Till the world broke in
like a weapon striking, blood on the hands,
soil. So filled with our lustful hush I couldn't
contain it. And because we couldn’t stop, there was
always music or mourning, never a grace note between.
Linda Zisquit’s most recent collection of poetry is The Face in the Mirror (2004). Her translations from Hebrew include Desert Poems of Yehuda Amichai (1991) and Let the Words: Selected Poems of Yona Wallach (2006). She teaches poetry in the Masters in Creative Writing Program at Bar Ilan University and runs Artspace, a leading Jerusalem art gallery.