My Mother's House

(1 ) My mortar's mother died

(2) In the spring of her days. And her daughter

(3) Did not remember her face. Her portrait, engraved

(4.) Upon my grandfather's heart,

(5) Was erased from (wiped of) the world of images

(6) After his death.

(7) Only her mirror remained in the home,

(8) Sunken (deepened) with age into the silver, frame.

(9) And I, her pale granddaughter, who does not resemble her,

(10) Look into it today as into

(11) A pool which conceals its treasures

(12) Beneath the waters.

(13) Very deep (down), behind my fact,

(14) I see a young woman

(15) Pink-checked, smiling.

(16) And a wig on her head.

(17) She puts

(18) An elongated tarring on her ear-lobs, threading it

(19) Through a tiny hole in the dainty flesh

(20) Of her tar.

The Modern Hebrew Poet Itself, ed. by Standley Burnshaw, et. al. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 128 1989