Sirje, and: Two Stories About Death

Sirje

Tell me what womb bore you.
My mother's, filled with teeth.
Tell me about Cadmus.
He sowed the teeth; I thought you would be a warrior.
Tell me about myself as a child.
You were never a child: you were a flash in the pan, a stone falling to earth.
Tell me why you would not tell me you were a child.
Because there was no good, green earth where my people went in time.
Then tell me why you never loved me.
Only the moon in her cycles knows, only the ebb and flow of the ocean.

Two Stories About Death

1. Upon her death, my mother was covered in dirt and sores. I was far away. A thousand miles away. It was my duty to wash the body; always, the Jewish daughter, daughter of her flesh, her bones, honors the mother. But now, the hospital washed the body, and then, in the crematorium, she went up in smoke a second time.

2. My father dies quietly every day. He drinks. He does not eat. He does not read. He does not watch TV. He stays inside his house as in his grave. Yet when I was a child, he was a vital man: I danced on his shoes. Now, he wants me to dance on his shoes again. Although I do not say so, I know that when he passes through that iron gate to the north, I will rejoice: I will not need to dance any longer.