For my mother



To look up and see his face,
drifting in the window
like a tethered balloon,

and looking through him
see her room,
freighted with silence,

like the weight of snow.
To have lived
here for twenty years

and not to know
even suspect
what it’s all for –

that sloping field
across the road,
the weathered stones

we hid behind,
watching her go.

To look up and see him there –
cartoon face,
hanging by a question mark,

a ragged hook –
and quickly turn away,
noting how

the apple tree has
split beneath
the weight of snow:

her death,
still moving in the world.



Tel Aviv 1992