Each day I go down
to the banks of the Sambatyon1
to measure iron
against stone,
not brave enough to begin
or end my life.
I haven’t yet found
a place
in the turbulent circle where
absence and desire
co-exist;
neither free
from need, nor staring
back at it
from an empty book.
Dissident.
Soothsayer.
Pathological liar.
I never loved Jacob.
Why should I lift the mortal veil
to reveal the self
behind the story, leap
from historical object
to subject; means-to-an-end,
the first-person
singular, present.
I see the world in imperatives:
Break silence.
Lie down in a cool grave
and denounce the past
fifty centuries,
drink in the river’s din, glide
with angel fish, mimic
the slow motion
of sea grass and in the end
rise to the surface
like indefatigable breath, or
live backwards, devolving,
reborn
in the eye
of another terrible maiden.
1Mythical river surrounding the lost ten tribes. On all days but the Sabbath, it erupted stones and was unnavigable.
-Susan Litwack
