Time will break what doesn’t
bend—even time.
—Kaveh Akbar, from Despite My Efforts Even My Prayers Have Turned into Threats
 
 
When I’m a boy, Father teaches me
the Shema: Hear O’ Israel,
the Lord is our God, the Lord is one…
He wants me to recite it every night
before I go to sleep, in case it’s the last words
that fly from my lips to God’s ears.
 
When Mother is on her death bed,
she whispers the Shema
while I lie next to her on Father’s bed.
She isn’t a believer
but she wants the words to transport her,
the Shin to unravel into a murder of crows.
+++++++++
 
Years ago, on a business trip to Tel Aviv,
I burst into tears in the middle
of Rabin Square: the crowds laughing,
listening to music, watching mime;
the pigeons in a cabal, cooing
in Hebrew and Arabic.
 
In 2024, a howl from the pit of my stomach:
the throngs in Rabin Square protesting;
the Holocaust Memorial on the south end—
an upturned triangle with metal bars on the sides,
the Star of David on the roof,
the shape only visible from the sky.