Yudit Shahar
trans. by Aviya Kushner
Two POEMS
End of the Season
Tell me how the shark escaped from the storm to the yard, tell me
about the apple cakes in grandma’s airing-out closet
and I’ll tell you about the insoles of wood sorrel conquering the hilltop.
Yes, poetesses are already out of fashion
and I am still looking for the whisper
in the reflection of the strawberry tree.
For six-hundred-and ninety-nine shekels and ninety-nine agurot
I acquired a mysterious look and pinkish lips
long legs in pointy boots
and a fake fur from China, end-of-season price;
I turn on the air conditioner, forget that I am in Petach Tikvah
on the last day of December, empty a bottle of wine,
give my full loyalty to the computer screen
that promises that it won’t leave me again, ever.
After that I’ll go eat sushi and the salesman will ask “for here or to go?”
and I’ll say “here” and consider
what would you say about women whose fingers smell of fish
Going to Eat the Whole Box
I have wine and I rolled a cigarette,
wine and cigarettes, or a Hebrew woman who will know about your life.
Yair77 says he is a light-hearted type but serious when that’s needed.
Ofer535 offers that he’s real and will be my best friend.
Letters slink across the screen fast, like ants
that years ago came to live with me in the kitchen.
Who will I know:
woman, seeks man, divorced, two kids at home, Israel.
I take a deep breath and type.
I wanted to find an ideal age range/
preferred family situation/preferred build/religious background/
smoking habits: doesn’t smoke/sometimes
I open a can and pile the yellow kernels in my mouth,
grind it to flakes (Ben Gurion rice) that melt to sweetening nectar,
I am on my way to eat the entire box,
I am on my way to eat it all because the snake in the cave is flicking
his tongue in the darkness.
Yudit Shahar grew up on the border of Sh’chunat HaTikvah, or “the neighborhood of hope,” in Tel Aviv. She is the author of the poetry collections This Is Me Speaking (2009) and Every Street Has Its Own Madwoman (2013), and recently won the prestigious Prime Minister’s Prize in Hebrew Literature.
Aviya Kushner grew up in a Hebrew-speaking home in New York. She is the author of The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible (Spiegel & Grau/ Random House, 2015). She is The Forward’s language columnist and an associate professor at Columbia College Chicago.