You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

and then her eyes fully opened — blazed through with strands of mud

I am not a guide
for every traveler
of loss.

Now that the Israeli has left, it falls
on me to make the salad.

My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.

I myself should never have been born

I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome

I have an axe
with hearts gashed

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

In my universe, my arm carries a heart and flowers,
my back a misguided quote