R A C H E L A. L E V I N E
CREATIVE WRITER & Visual Artist
Visit Me At
BALANCE Brooklyn 1965
Passed my window
arms flapping inelegantly
his skinny boy-legs thrust out into
that menacing space
-- then hoots!
from other stoops
The concrete sidewalk,
his shiny metal skates
make that young boy noise.
The fence at the end of our block is his goal,
then the grasping, turning around.
And out again-not far really.
Perhaps a tall shrub or balance-
whichever fortune brings him,
and his leather straps tightened exactly for success.
But the sidewalk rises up for him,
the fence reaches out to him,
friction rules his feet
and the stoops are alive.
Passed my window
and everything about it makes me laugh;
his skinny need to do it,
his stoop-friends now solemn,
his insane propulsion without direction.
Scratch-scratch, over and over, back and forth,
until his stoop friends go in,
the sidewalks and fences retreat,
he wobbles home, sits on the steps and takes that
worn silver skate key from his back pocket.
JEWISH DIVORCE
Five rabbis come
to my mother’s tiny apartment
in Brooklyn.
Fifteen years
after the divorce
she stands in her doorway
with her babushka
and wet eyes.
There is a clicking
of tongues.
The young fat one
with pink cheeks
speaks first.
The middle-aged one
takes my mother’s hand.
He pays her a compliment
that embarrasses her.
-----
I hold you and the rabbis file in quietly,
filling the small places quickly as salt.
With you in the dimming afternoon,
hollow closets, whispering old women with knitting needles;
and I have arrived,
welcomed with an array of kerchiefs and brassieres in every color.
On your bed, my pockets full of dirty salt,
while the rabbis file in silently and fill the corners of the room.