Poem of the Day
Consecutive Preterite
By Jessica Laser
That summer I learned Biblical Hebrew / with Christian women heaving themselves / toward ministry one brick building at a time.
That summer I learned Biblical Hebrew / with Christian women heaving themselves / toward ministry one brick building at a time.
So hot the shore we drove through four states
to reach stays dazed a skipping-stone’s throw
beyond the window, though the tide creeps out,
I hold my brother’s daughter in my lap
and clip her fingernails. She sits expectant
and will not be distracted from the unfolding
The suddenly bought land
Was stilled in its habits. Indians
Too light-fingered for events
This cemetery is no haven,
old Jews waving at you
offering Kaddish for a few dollars,
A tongue crossing the place where we burn
our trash, the snail slides over
ashes, nails and glass, moving
Did you love her? I thought about her
continuously for a year. There were whole hours
there was nothing too thin about her look, her voice.
The child floats out his Indian cry
Across the river. Where did the Mohawks go to?
It arrives with the breath of mudflats as we pass by
As a kid I never thought of “pain” as
something I felt. What I felt I could not
name or share. Now out the window I watch
What you know, O fool, no one else does.
And what no one else knows,
I am not equal to.
A man bigger than you and more intelligent
walks into his future as into a dining room
anticipating small surprises and large comforts.