Different Skies

because you do things

you don’t know why

you do them)

you look for words

to convey what you feel

you try to justify

your thoughts

you make up reasons

(which become your story)

as if you were spinning a twig

in the rain

(you confabulate with

what you already know and

what you don’t

half-truths

born out of stubbornness

you represent

your

self to yourself

(catching a glimpse of

the person you were)

staring back at the person

you’ve become

because i wanted to meet

you

i stayed around

and i decided to be

there for you) and

because i had a theory that

when you’re born

you’re a complete person)

i wanted to know

and i found out that it’s so

that you were

you) are

you

in the dream

they were all there

in his room as the boy lay dreaming them

standing by the shelves his dad built

at first there was just dust and ash

then bones, skin, hair

disordered, in piles on the different levels

then they were passing parts of him

to each other

down long lines whose extremities

were faded in the thickening haze

as the parts were brought together

they became slowly more formed

until there appeared a limb, a hand

an ear, an eye, a head, a heart

but not all at once,

bit by bit

like the features of a landscape

the grandparents stood close by

whispering amongst themselves

a moment passed and now

they had decided.

so the boy was in pieces

waiting to be assembled

it was up to his parents

to put him together

with all their love, carefully

they set their hands to work

III

would have liked to have been a watchmaker

i want to piss

his words came in a

lightning stream of utterance

pitched for none but the sharpest ears

his tongue loved to cut

like Abrah’m’s knife

born in a city in present-day Lithuania

raised in Haifa in what was then Palestine

(there’s no such country as Palestine,

never has been. The name itself means

‘land of refugees’.

No, my Grandfather grew up in Palestine

I argued with the night nurse

in the Toronto hospital

as I sat beside my grandmother,

who was fast asleep. I said

I’ve been there and I know what it’s called

the nurse’s eyes lit up with rage

she’d crossed over into this new world

so she could say whatever she liked

about the one she’d left behind

she was letting me know

people like her

have no shame)

came to London in the late ’40s

worked for a whisky company,

best employee they ever had

(as a child I remember his screaming voice

which he used to extract money

from clients who he sold to on credit)

moved to Luxembourg

why Luxembourg?

same reason as everyone else,

because it’s a tax haven

he carved a niche for himself

in the hall of prosperity

he sliced his name in half

for the sake of convenience

he severed his ties with the old life

but he went back to visit

only now as a new man, on his own terms

in the name of modernity

he said that

to complain is a privilege

had 3 sisters, 2 elder and 1 twin,

a language teacher, a musician

and a doctor’s wife

married an Englishwoman from the North,

clever, hardworking and devoted

had several affairs with other women,

always strangers to the family,

some of whom may have received

moderate sums of money

for various reasons

i want to piss

later, he became softer

when that life was over

(it left him against his will.

he’d made no preparations for retirement

his papers were in such disarray

they took months to sort through,

which was mostly done by his wife,

to her disgust, with a shredder.

nobody expected him to accept

another life, constrained to his chair

waves of lucidity passing over his mind

surrounded by strangers for the most part

but he did, somehow.

we used to visit him, my Dad and I,

sometimes other members of the family

it seemed that over the years

he lived it all again

and perhaps he came to terms

with some of the things that

he hadn’t before)

he spoke in Hebrew, Arabic, even Russian

offered us positions at the bank

tasted once more the grapes of his youth

we’ve finished now

we don’t want to hear it anymore

we want to be by ourselves

survived by his wife,

his twin sister,

his daughter,

his son,

his grandson

(like g ntle beasts

umble i the dark

all a once touch

cross great distans

as if

versing soltude)

no, he wasn’t a religious man

(unlike his father,

who was as meek as a lamb)

he used to go maybe twice,

three times a year

but when it came to me

he wanted the proper thing done –

didn’t matter to him if it was

totally out of the blue,

almost whimsical

my dad said no

but he thought about it,

how it wouldn’t be such a bad idea

to take me to meet the family,

how in a way that would make up for

not doing the proper thing,

would be more meaningful

so a compromise was struck.

we boarded an aeroplane,

3000 and some kilometres later to arrive

in the promised land

where desert sand is flanked by

strips of lawn

you’re supposed to talk about your family now

but i don’t know what to say about them

talk about the food,

long hours spent around tables

it’s so good to see you,

you’re only staying so little?

some didn’t speak such good English

eat, you’re not hungry?

we stayed with Auntie Yula, the eldest sibling

you don’t like it?

i like it, Auntie Yula,

it’s just there’s no space on my plate

they were curious, as we were

some were even welcoming

you must come back soon!

one morning brushing my teeth

a bobcat stared at me from the garden,

our four eyes mystified

traces of recent history lay dormant around us,

unspeaking of the further brutality to come

as we sojourned in search of a blessing

we stopped the car by the roadside one evening

as the earth and the sky became one

we passed a moment there

then we went home

he’s like the familiar figure

in a dream whose features

you can’t quite make out

behind him i could see

yellow leaves swaying

through angled glass strips

a vacant quietude tugged

at my collar

in the dream it was my

schoolmate who’d had the

top of his head removed

he was O.K., in fact they

made him more intelligent

that way, like the boy

in the cartoon who lives

in a bubble in the space age

i didn’t think much of it then

but for some reason it came to mind

in that room with the yellow leaves,

angled glass strips and him

i didn’t want to say it at the time

when my schoolmates asked me

and i was surprised when he said it,

the man without a face

as if he somehow knew

what had happened

he asked me whether it was

for religious reasons

i didn’t really know what to say

i stared into space until

he vanished

“all the family agreed it was a good idea”

do you remember when the words

used to slip away

dancing on the tip of your tongue

it’s a question of proxy

who starts the conversation

unspoken

silences hung heavy

waiting

or when the days used to collapse into one

they’d flicker and fade before you knew they’d begun

when a swathe of summer air

could bring you round all of a sudden

bearing down on the playground

there are certain questions

i’ve been waiting for you to ask

or the giddiness that overtakes your nerves

intoxicated, the sense of momentum

escaping in a spiral

love just being plain

unable to hide itself

in a glance or a gesture

from one body to another

that’s why it’s taken me some time

to put the pieces together

what language will they use

when all this passes on

into another form

peace isn’t a question anymore

certain doubts dissolve

when faith turns to knowledge

what music will they hear

it’s for you to understand

better where you come from

the children of yesterday

shrouded in hope

remembering the future

VII

who like gentle beasts

fumble in the dark

all at once touching

across great distances

as if for a moment

traversing solitude