izzy

3.
the mountain gorillas are hiding out in the rafters of a four-star hotel, preening each other, touching cheeks, gazing into each others’ soft brown eyes.
occasionally, one lumbers down from its perch to crush a hotel patron with a hug to lift their sadness.
the foyer smells like musk and moss, and the hotel has started renting camping lots in the carpark for all the sad people queuing to be hugged.

*

sarah

That man
that man wants to take the synagogue of my mother
and her mother, and her mother before her
of my father and grand, grand fathers
and kind, and good, and true
and on the day that we are all gone, he wants to open it wide
and call it a museum to an extinct race

but that man has no mind for the desperation of rage
that man is of steel, and I am of flesh
and this wild young jewess, this unvenerated woman
this stick-starved little girl will make him a golem

There is no water in these streets any more
but there is plenty of blood, and this clay will burn red
like the sun in the east, like the coming of day
these witch-woman’s hands will knead up the earth
and sew in the ferocity that runs in our veins
I will carve out the shape of a giant stone woman
I will fold in the truth that I keep between my legs
and I will write out the name of the god that I love
and place it in her mouth, and kiss her clay lips
and I tell her that she is holy, a daughter of god

And as she blazes to life, I will ride on her back
for every soft weeping one of us, for every one they called sow
every one that they beat, every one that they shot
for those who fell to the crusaders, the Christians, the Cossacks
every one of my people who cried out to my lord as they died

and we will march to that man
we will march through this guttering nightmare of hatred
with the terrible, glorious god-light of day
and as the sunrise comes roaring, this blood-rusted stone soldier
will clap her hands together, and the whole world will pray

*