 Comments (0)
Rachel Tzvia Back is an Israeli poet whose work includes the collections Litany and Azimuth, as well as pieces published in The American Poetry Review, Tikkun, Modern Poetry in Translation and Dreaming the Actual: Contemporary Fiction and Poetry by Israeli Women Writers. Her newest work is entitled The Buffalo Poems, a book-length series tracking the cycle of violence defining the lives of Israelis and Palestinians during these last years. American-born, Back writes in English but has lived in Israel for 25 years, where she and her husband are raising three children ages 14, 11, and 6. You can read Literary Mama's profile of her here.
More from Rachel Tzvia Back
Poetry Archives
Her Hands
By Rachel Tzvia Back
January 30, 2006
Her hands
open on her lap
empty and
motionless
palms facing up
as in
prayer
pale lines leading
nowhere
and a ragged
lifeline
that tells
one great lie
Littlest
spirit she
carried and
could not
protect
from what
from whom
in the darkened
warm room where
baby breaths
hovered
promising
themselves
in the narrow and
precarious
world
suddenly
gone
The debate
as to how
or if
one recovers
raging in whispers
in every corner
beside the empty
stroller above
the empty
crib
within
emptied and
terrified hearts
and she
is as
small
as still
and silent
as the baby girl
who was
tenderly rocked
to sleep
and then
never
woke up
Comments are closed 2 months after a piece is published.
| 
