Status Updates From שירי אהבה

What's it like to be a woman?
What's it like to feel
a vacancy between the legs, curiosity
under the skirt, in summer, in wind,
and chutzpa at the haunches?

. . . What's it like to have a whole voice,
that never broke?
To dress and undress. . . slitherly
slinkily. . . caressively
like wearing olive oil. . .
a murmuring nothing of peach or mauve?

What's it like to "feel a woman?"
. . . What's it like to love me?

Soon,
of the two of us, neither will be left
to forget the other.

After you left me
I let a dog smell at
my chest and my belly. It will fill its nose
and set out to find you.

I hope it will tear the
testicles of your lover and bite off his penis
or at least
will bring me your stockings between his teeth.

Your very short dress is in fashion,
your weeping and laughter come from ancient times,
perhaps from some book of other kings.
I've never seen foam at the mouth of a war horse,
but when you lathered your body with soap
I saw.

I want to stand once more as in my
first love, leaning on the doorpost
embracing you all night long, standing.
When we left at early dusk the house
started to crumble and collapse
and since then the town
and since then the whole world.

The end was quick and bitter.
Slow and sweet was the time between us,
slow and sweet were the nights
when my hands did not touch one another in despair
but in the love of your body
which came between them.

And when I entered into you
it seemed then that great happiness
could be measured with the precision
of sharp pain. Quick and bitter.

Slow and sweet were the nights.
Now is bitter and grinding as sand-

They amputated
your thighs off my hips.
As far as I'm concerned
they are all surgeons. All of them.

They dismantled us
each from the other.
As far as I'm concerned
they are all engineers. All of them.

A pity. We were such a good
and loving invention.
An airplane made from a man and wife.
Wings and everything.
We hovered a little above the earth.

We even flew a little.

I was lying on you heavy and quiet
like a weight, so that the wind and time couldn't
blow you away like bits of paper and hours.

If you open your coat
my love must widen

if you wear that round white beret
my blood must redden

wherever you love
furniture must be removed from the room

trees, mountains, seas--all of it
gone from the narrow world.

The rain speaks quietly;
you may now sleep.
Beside my bed--a newspaper's rushing wings.
There are no other angels.
I'll get up early and bribe the coming day,
that it be good to us.

You had a laugh of grapes:
many laughs, green and round.
Your body is full of lizards;
they all love the sun.
Flowers grow in the field, grass on my cheek.
Anything is possible.

...
The earth drinks men and their loves
like wine,
to forget.
...
In the middle of this century we turned to each other,
I saw your body, throwing shade, waiting for me,
...
I spoke in praise of your mortal hips
You spoke in praise of my passing face.

The world’s awake tonight.
On its back with wide-open eyes.

The moon fits the line of your cheeks,
your breasts—the line of mine.

Your heart plays tug-of-blood
inside your veins.

Your eyes are still as warm as beds—
time slept in them.

Your thighs two sweet days past,
I come to you.

All one hundred fifty psalms
cry out at once.
.
.
from Six Songs for Tamar

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