by Rachel Neve-Midbar
Half memories absorbed, the ritual world—here/now,
yet lost to forgetfulness. Watch: him: a look of love
caught on film; us, under the maypole, the unmarried girls
each holding a crepe-paper strand, yellow, green,
braiding in and out of each other until we are caught
in the weave, that perfect image: marriage. Watch: later,
in the blue air of midnight, sounds of nocturnal
echos or merely heartbeats in a too quiet room?
A wedding dress crumpled
at the end of the bed. A new husband
so quickly asleep. And me, wandering
a strange hotel room unsure whether to cover
my nakedness or embrace it. It’s a scene
that will repeat through the years:
a whisper of thought–perhaps
love is beyond me? Though my despair
always more comfortable linked
to blaming others—
I crack doors never expecting a thief;
I open my body never expecting hope. Once
the glass of every double paned window
of my skyscraper shattered and there I lay,
completely open, the wind shrieking, the fragments
sharp in the blue light, spikes clinking, but I
remain open—waiting, not for something
to save me. Just for the shards.
::
Poet, essayist, translator, and Fulbright Scholar, Rachel Neve-Midbar’s collection Salaam of Birds (Tebot Bach 2020) was chosen by Dorothy Barresi for the Patricia Bibby First Book Prize. She is also the author of the chapbook, What the Light Reveals (Tebot Bach, 2014, winner of The Clockwork Prize). Rachel’s work has appeared in journals such as Blackbird, Prairie Schooner, Grist and Georgia Review as well as other publications and anthologies. She is the editor of Stained: an anthology of writing about menstruation (Querencia Press, July 2023). More at rachelnevemidbar.com.
Image: Callie Gibson
ID: a long exposure portrait of a woman with her head turned left and forward.
Psaltery & Lyre 