Simha
In Nasiriyah’s forest of mothers / she was a seedling with blonde hair / and five children.
By Maia Zelkha
My grandmother was a mother
before she was a woman.
In Nasiriyah’s forest of mothers,
she was a seedling with blonde hair
and five children.
Grief was a plague
in the exodus of our ancestors,
grief is a vine, tinged yellow,
that grows on the gate of a synagogue
in Basra.
Through a window of the synagogue,
her hand pressed
against the fogged glass,
my grandmother mouths the words
to a story which I do not understand.
Outside, I am shaded by full grown willow trees
that speak Arabic and shake with laughter.