writing workshops
The Towers, Makom La Shira Publishing 2022
"A complete work constructed as a meticulous act. Supreme mastery of art"
Shira Stav, Haaretz Books Supplement 24.6.22
"One of the most spectacular texts written in Hebrew in recent years, a dizzying emotional power"
Ido Nitzan, 'Israel Today' 2.2. 22
"Read with bated breath, from immense inner tension, the reader is left overcome by pain and beauty"
In every sarola, 'Makor Rishon' supplement Saturday 18.2.22
"Bold and penetrating, an unusual, angry and particularly wild subgenre of dirges"
Eli Hirsch, Yedioth Ahronoth 4.3.22
Cranes
translated by Yardenne Greenspan
She is hiking with her husband in the Hula Reserve.
The children have run ahead.
She observes the cranes.
She says:
When I am a bird I will die in midflight.
He laughs in response.
She doesn’t know that he has another woman
She thinks it is his way of saying—my dear, I’d recommend
not ever dying.
When it comes she won’t die. Not at first.
The shame will drain her happiness, spasm after spasm, much like the gag reflex,
where did he bathe after the act, in which city did they meet, is he thinking of her,
she won’t ask, but precisely because of that she will never be rewarded with an answer.
Sometimes she will cry.
Run kilometers, drink only juices, complicated things.
She will be so confused that she won’t remember what she cannot.
The days will pass.
There’s no use lying,
she will remain suspicious.
Cordial towards the future.
Her husband won’t make an effort to bring her back,
perhaps because he is so panicked.
She will walk through the hallways
and watch him avoid her.
She’ll dance her mouth around the silence.
When asked how she is she will say:
I am a happy person in a sad time.
Or:
What love has to teach me
she teaches without love.
She’ll use these kinds of expressions.
One day without explaining she will get up and leave the house,
it will be urgent for her to see flocks of birds charging the wind.
She will cross half the reserve but she will find nothing.
There are no cranes, they tell her. There aren’t any, and there won’t be this year.
What do you mean, she’ll become upset,
but it was a long way to get here,
there are no cranes, lady, what do you want,
but the journey and the traffic and the fatigue and the tension
years upon years,
call the person in charge
please call someone,
there are no cranes
just empty peat land,
her voice will choke
and she’ll return to the car
instead of shouting
how could she burn the earth,
the dry and flammable earth,
but she’s not ready to hurt anyone
she doesn’t think she has the right,
in the end, as it happened, she died; she, which is to say, me; yes, slowly, but in the end, there’s no use lying.
*
Flowers
translated by Yardenne Greenspan
Flowers arrived from your workplace.
Congratulations on our new home!
Congratulations! Congratulations!
Congratulations for circling the empty rooms!
Congratulations for not bothering to tell me about her!
Congratulations for not demanding to hear!
Congratulations, what does she know about me?
Things I whispered to you, satiated with intimacy!
Congratulations for being the only one to fulfil the contract!
Congratulations for the nightmares that startle me awake!
It really happened!
Congratulations, love is only a possibility projected onto objects!
Congratulations, after we finish unpacking the kitchen, we’ll offer homework help!
Atlantis, children, was a large and formidable city!
Congratulations for the sudden desire to grab at each other!
To smell!
Congratulations for the orgasm, and the next one, and the next one!
Congratulations for the taut sheets on our new bed!
Tell me more about the hunger!
Congratulations on our honest conversation!
She’s lighter! You grip with your thighs!
Congratulations for enjoying the cursing!
You son of a bitch! How could you!
Congratulations for tossing out letters we once wrote to each other!
Congratulations for responding to the complaints of our new neighbors!
We didn’t dirty up the stairs!
Maybe she’s long-legged!
Maybe she had expansive topics of conversation to keep you fascinated!
Congratulations for our friends over the phone, wet with gloating!
Congratulations for the people we thought we were!
Congratulations, if they come visit we’ll serve them kosher cake!
(In a room full of men, I could easily recognize you with my eyes closed! My head! A candied apple on a stick! Your mouth!)
Congratulations for the question: what are we going to do now!
Congratulations for our renewed vow: no longer will we trust any vow!
Congratulations for the decision to break up!
And then for the decision to stay together!
And then for the decision to pretend nothing ever happened!
Congratulations for the joke someone tells in our presence!
Congratulations for the surprising slumber!
Congratulations in this, our finest hour,
not an hour—
a minute!
Not a minute—
a second!
Congratulations in our finest second,
for being able to forget!
Just before sunrise!
You sweep my body to you and say out of habit: forever!
Congratulations for this promise
kept briefly for eternity.
*
Amazon Asks Me
translated by Yardenne Greenspan
Amazon asks me how I feel. I’m important to Amazon. Amazon wants to know me better, Amazon asks me whether I have experienced a loss of faith in a partner in the past year, loss of faith in a friend or an acquaintance also works for Amazon, Amazon only wants to help me, Amazon trusts me to tell, Amazon wants me to describe whether I’ve been experiencing difficulty breathing, weight gain, or recurring intrusive thoughts, Amazon shows me what other people in my situation did, Amazon knows I want to get better. Do I want clarity, improved mood, or help forgiving? Amazon loves me, Amazon is prepared to offer me more, a three-pack of natural capsules and a meditation CD for my car, Amazon asks for my phone number, Amazon wants to call me, Amazon asks for my address, Amazon wants to stop by, Amazon asks for my credit card number, Amazon believes in my ability to pay whatever I choose, Amazon suggests that I add an e-book at checkout, 236 thousand people have been victims of infidelity, and 342 of them have left a positive review. Amazon thinks deeply about what I’ve shared, Amazon doesn’t deliver to Israel, Amazon suggests I enter a different delivery address, but I don’t have one, I write to them, I don’t I don’t, and what am I supposed to do now without eucalyptus capsules and without being able to get up, and with dizzy spells and bad orientation, and a backache and neck ache and shoulder ache and hair loss and places that make me nervous and trigger me, and recurring intrusive thoughts, it’s my fault, it’s my fault, where did I go wrong, and with recurring intrusive thoughts.
*
River
translated by Yardenne Greenspan
The front door opens.
Your smell.
Why are you late?
What difference does it make.
I’m too tired to be suspicious.
Too hurt to trust
what has already been breached.
I choose you.
That is,
without me doing a thing
You are chosen.
You walk over to the stove to see what’s cooking.
Your smell.
I want to evaporate.
The hallway is narrow.
The room is small.
What’s done is done.
Your shoulders.
Your smell.
Our clean sheets.
For a moment again
without me doing a thing.
I dip with you in the same river.
Even though there is no river.
*
Bill
translated by Yardenne Greenspan
We go to the grocery store.
You wear that undershirt,
the one you used to wear,
before the evil winter.
I match my pace to yours.
I don’t laugh at your jokes, but I do listen
when you speak.
Big deal.
There was a woman in your life,
it’s over now.
Like the flu,
like a fever,
no harm done.
We walk inside.
One to the ice cream, the other to the meat,
you disappear, then suddenly emerge from an aisle—
white, muscular shoulders,
for an instant I don’t recognize
this man,
but
my body is quicker than I,
lunging at you.
The most crucial testimonies of me are given to me in my absence.
Do you remember?
When we got married, I refused to say
it’s the happiest day of my life.
I said,
there will be many days.
How to count this day?
I stand at the cash register with you
going over the bill.
You take the heavy bags from my hands.
We’ve got ice cream.
I don’t know what’s going to become of us.
I think I’m staying.
For a few hours today,
she wasn’t even on my mind.
I hope I can forgive
rather than just pretend.
In the meantime, we quicken our steps.
The ice cream has already melted.
You knew it would hurt me.
You did it anyway.
This is a happy day in my life.
Who knows what’s going to become of us.
*
Puss
translated by Yardenne Greenspan
I’m heading out (I grab the keys)
I’ll be back late (I slip out the door)
Nothing to worry about (the distance between me and the truth; a narrow, mildewed crack)
Go to bed (he texts me on the way)
I hope you get some sleep (he pauses a few footsteps away)
Don’t wait up (I ask him to be gentle, I’ve never done this sort of thing before)
I’m just trying to fix things (the tongue moves in and out like a needle, sewing words together)
Nothing to worry about (he looks at me)
I’ll be back late (he tilts his head back)
Try to get some sleep (a meek, surprising moan, as if a pigeon breathing)
Don’t worry about me (knowing that I am defeating him. Knowing that I am defeating him)
Don’t wait up (lips, interior, finger moving through honey, to be the chosen one again)
I don’t know when I’ll be back (what I spent years saving up inside for you, untouched, is now given to another who may be just as worthy as you)
What can I say (his breath)
You started it (fingers, fingers)
I’ll be back late (I can’t handle all this good)
I’ll be back in the morning (I don’t want it to end)
Try to get some sleep (the shirt drives home, the pants drive home, the underwear drives home, the bra drives home, the skin the pulse the breath)
Did you get any sleep? (I caress your face, opening up to me, electric. No longer will my body end with your body)
I’m sorry (now that you’ve given me meaning, you are no longer as meaningful to me)
It’s for our own good (a meek, surprising moan, as if a pigeon breathing)
Don’t wait up (this isn’t your lover returning to you, only your wife)
What do you want from me? (I pass you by within my familiar body)
You started it (nothing moves back in time. Not the girl you cheated on me with, not the man I took for revenge, then for my surprised self: how beautiful I am to one who has not grown accustomed)
I’ll be back late (my yearning for him oozes like puss)
Go to sleep (a meek, surprising moan)
Don’t worry about me (you want to hear the details)
I’m just trying to fix things (I enjoy telling)
You started it (you whisper your rage)
It’s for our own good (I read the love poems I used to write to you)
What can I say (innocent love poems. Two fetuses floating in the waters of bliss)
I’ll be back late (you let me pull away, I judge you for your virtues)
What do you want from me? (I wake up too early, I can’t fall asleep)
I’m just trying to fix things (I bathe in the affection of my friends who rejoice in my tragedy)
Don’t wait up (I belong to anyone whose heart was broken)
I’ll see you tomorrow (I caress your head, consoling you for what I haven’t yet done)
You’ve got nothing to worry about (you’ve got no choice)
I’ll be back in the morning (I stop offering you the distorted mirror of will)
I’m sorry (the absence of love births my love of self)
What do you want from me? (the question marks tightens around my neck)
You started it (A secret goodbye without telling our parents without telling our kids without telling me so I can talk myself out of it)
I’m heading out (my suffering is not unique but my bravery is not redundant)
I’m sorry (I can take it)
Don’t wait up (holding up the pole of the body)
I’ll be back in the morning (and jumping over the body)
I’m heading out (I grab the keys)
I don’t know when I’ll be back.
*
Did You Know?
translated by Yardenne Greenspan
Did you know? In a moment, someone will set you down on the path.
Did you know? You’ll choose the sandbox.
Did you know? A flock of five-year-olds will circle you with mockery.
Did you know? The one playing by herself.
Did you know? Childhood means because I said so/Childhood means just because versus just because.
Did you know? You’ll comply with rules that could have been different.
Did you know? You’ll extricate yourself from childhood only to discover how urgently you want to extricate yourself from youth.
Did you know? You’ll go to great lengths to make sure nobody sees your will.
Did you know? The first thing you’ll look at in any home you visit, will be the plants.
Did you know? One day, a stranger will reveal himself to you.
Did you know? From the moment you know, you can’t unknow.
Did you know? You’ll go to him like a silk moth born to the leaves without a mouth.
Did you know? You’ll ask to know the first word he learned not to say.
Did you know? He’ll make you a Wikipedia page as a joke.
Did you know? The only way to get apples would be to give apples.
Did you know? In the evening, casually, he’ll propose.
Did you know? One day, you’ll dream you’re caressing a woman.
Did you know? The incidental, of all things, is what you won’t be able to escape.
Did you know? You’ll decide on a trial separation.
Did you know? Pain will be a means of noticing.
Did you know? You’ll wait for him under the house he rented.
Did you know? When he shows up at dawn, you’ll suggest he get you pregnant.
Did you know? He’ll tell you a longwinded anecdote about a tiff between two kibbutzim over fishing in the Hula Lake.
Did you know? He’ll end up choosing you.
Did you know? You are Hephaistos, not Aphrodite.
Did you know? You’ll move back in together again.
Did you know? You’ll buy some watermelon for the two of you to share.
Did you know? The red will surprise you. You won’t think you deserve red.
Did you know? You’ll sit at the small balcony table.
Did you know? The air will absorb the humidity.
Did you know? Eventually, his weaknesses will cheat you over the bill.
Did you know? You’ll read a text message not intended for you.
Did you know? You’ll rush to track down the sender’s name.
Did you know? Insult will imbed its spores into you like mold.
Did you know? When he walks into the room, you’ll bury your head in his neck.
Did you know? When you break up this time, you’ll be the one who takes the poetry books.
Did you know? You’ll make the important decision in retrospect, regretfully.
Did you know? A fly will become caught in your moving car. You’ll only release it hours later, when you return to the same spot.
Did you know? A few months later, you’ll call to ask how he’s doing, and the doing will look at you, surprised.
Did you know? You’ll ask him to tell you how the fishing conflict was resolved.
Did you know? You’ll ask yourself if you’d be willing to be too much of something, anything, if anyone truly offered.
Did you know? You’ll fall unexpectedly ill.
Did you know? By age six, you won’t have enough time to even listen to the duets Mozart composed before he was six.
Did you know? By age twenty-one, you won’t have enough time to even read the sonnets Rimbaud wrote before he was twenty-one.
Did you know? He’ll come visit you.
Did you know? In spite of what the sign says, you’ll stay together after visiting hours are over.
Did you know? From the hospital window, you’ll see the edge of the desert.
Did you know? He’ll ask you what kind of kid you used to be.
Did you know? You’ll reply: just like lots of other children.
Did you know? At dawn, you’ll choke down a laughing fit.
Did you know? You didn’t know.
He’ll log onto Wikipedia on his phone—
Startlingly long fingers, like seedlings bursting at the sun.
Did you know? He’ll go on to describe your hand even when it drops cold.
Did you know? It doesn’t matter what happened next.
Until the Wiki editors caught on to you, you had a moment’s rest.
*