Gili Haimovich, ISRAEL

COLONIZED 

How lucky we are
to be colonized into English,
to have found each other there.
Is it a message disguised as a poem
or a poem fused into message?
I am counting on your drunkenness.

 You are out there somewhere
in the ocean of cyberspace
I imagine you are drowning there
I imagine the ocean has drunk you
I sms this s.o.s.
It won't save you.


CHAMPAGNE AND HUMMUS 

I’ve loved like I’m strangled
and been loved like I’m entitled.
We got married in a language that is not our own
in a backyard on loan
from people we’re unfamiliar with.
We had guests that came only
out of curiosity. And yet,
We convinced ourselves that this is what we want.
We left the rest of the convincing
to the champagne and hummus.
Though you did love me,
as the honey
loves his honey bun,
it tasted more like sparkling hummus.
Seeking sweet,
I did allow us
to cast away
to a spontaneous honeymoon.
By then I was willing to reach
just the honey without the moon.
But even so, it lasted less than a day.
It took me more than era
to realize the honeymoon was fake.
As night grew cold
you tasted like a savory desert.
As I grow old
I will try to recall
the taste of you,
of champagne and hummus.


HUM 

Through the humdrum of routine rote,
through the scorching boredom of the humid streets,
I carry you
as a hum.

Layers of body and distance,
this gift that is warped with many things
is nothing but warmth.

Can one hand another anything but attention?

As daringly as the fresh green on the treetop’s leaves
I love \ write.
That’s my protest.


Gili Haimovich is an internationally published poet and translator in Hebrew and English. She is the author of two collections in English and six volumes of poetry in Hebrew. A winner of the Osiaa di Sepia international prize for best foreign author and awarded as an outstanding artist by the Ministry of Culture (Israel, 2015) in addition to other awards and grants. Her poetry is published and presented worldwide in festival, anthologies and journals such World Literature Today, International Poetry Review, The Literary Review of Canada, Asymptote, Poem, TOK - Writing the New Toronto and translated into more than 20 languages.

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