israel-poem

For 3 years in a row
I wrote about Jerusalem
Together, our class’s poems
Would have made a guidebook—
The Kotel, the hotels
The spas, the sea, Ein Gedi
Netanya to Renana
to the place that gave us Chanuka
Sephardic senoritas buying kafiyas in Hertzilya—
And none of us knew
What we were talking about.

When I got to Israel, at 17
On a Federation trip
I was a kid out of water, lost, angsty and on financial aid
determined to hate every minute of it
instead, I couldn’t stop writing for a week
I wished for pages of unbroken paper, I
could have filled a Torah