The Book of Life: Selected Jewish Poems, 1979–2011

contents

vi contents >Preface ix I >Becky and Benny in Far Rockaway 3 Old Men 4 Born in the USA 5 The Marriage Nocturne 6 Hunger 8 Elegy for Allen 11 West Fourth Street 13 At the Revelation Restaurant 14 Grandchild 15 II >A Meditation in Seven Days 19 Kol Nidre 32 III The Eighth and Thirteenth 37 Holocaust 40 Three Women 42 Who Saves a Life: Poem Beginning with a Line by Fitzgerald / Hemingway 45 Diaspora 49 Listening to Public Radio 50 Poem Sixty Years after Auschwitz 52 vii IV From the volcano sequence psalm 57 fire 59 judgment 60 during the bombing of Kosovo 61 the fast 62 the shekhinah as exile 63 the shekhinah as mute 65 the shekhinah as amnesiac 66 dark smile 67 seasonal 68 psalm 69 psalm 70 psalm 71 V Lamenting the Inevitable 75 The Bride 77 Tearing the Poem Up and Eating It 80 Divrei: The Settlers 83 What Is Needed after Food 84 VI >The Book of Life 89 Notes 97 Acknowledgments 101 ...