| Night in Jaffa by Ruth Setton | ||
I can't sleep here: cats wail in Hebrew, harsh as seabirds. A horse-drawn carriage races past, the driver stands — fierce, exultant — shakes his fist at the moon. I leave my room, my past, my life, and descend to the street I can map in my dreams. Jaffa crumbles before my eyes. My Israel is not yours: don't be afraid. I know where the stone steps die, labyrinth opens, pink flower blooms. Bell tower just ahead. Aboulafia's pita: burning and soft as the air. Toes cling to cobbles, understand how stone turns to flesh. Don't press your ear against the wall: voices scream through fissures, carve into your ear. A Russian whore sizzles tomatoes in garlic, her pimp grins goldtoothed on a cane chair outside the hotel. Past the blue bookstore, and iron railings, a woman beats secrets as if they were carpets. Pyramids of oranges and eggplants tumble, two boys ride a single bike, both pedaling and shouting, while the blackhaired woman— armless, legless — on her skateboard, sings with red mouth. Salt souls, rice-paper frail: a country without grandparents. Do you smell the sea I smell? See the white cat melt? Hear the beast howling at the town wall? Tracking you, threaded to you. Pink flower dangles through the gate, its raw petal brushes lips. Poison, they warned, but I don't believe it, no, not you, dizzying pink. I spread your petals across my palm, bite into your heart: bitter, bloodsweet. My flower, my love, tell me the story I've never heard but have always known. The night is long, and I am still hungry. _________________________________________________________________________ RUTH SETTON's first novel, THE ROAD TO FEZ, will be published by Counterpoint next year. She is the recipient of fellowships from the NEA, PEN, the Great River Arts Institute, Wesleyan Writers Conference, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Her work has been published in FEMSPEC, CrossConnect, Mediterraneans, International Quarterly, f/m, Tikkun, Response, Bridges, Lilith, The Denver Quarterly, Inside, New Directions for Women, The Journal of Canadian Fiction, Follow My Footprints: Changing Images of Women in American Jewish Fiction, Word of Mouth: Short-Short Fiction by Women (Volumes I and II), and Sephardic-American Voices: Two Hundred Years of a Literary Legacy. She will be the guest-editor of a special forthcoming issue of FEMSPEC on international Jewish women's magic realism. Ruth Setton is presently working on her second novel and a collection of poetry and tales. She teaches Creative Writing, World Women's Literature and Jewish Literature at Lafayette College. |