Thursday at Angel's Bakery
All night long a high school student from Ramallah braids challah bread
at a Jewish bakery. Friday morning rises sevenfold more secular
with the concerns of preparing for Sabbath sanctity. The bakery van arrives,
slanted wheat-stalk on its caulked doors cut in half when the doors open.
The challah loaves are hot and burn his palms. He catches one and throws another,
and another rolls down, shiny with the egg veneer, golden with sesame seeds.
Birds sing from the rooftops above the almond trees.
The children on vacation gather rocks to throw at the Jewish soldiers. [End Page 74]
Dahlia Falah is a pen name, and the facts of her life are closely guarded by her publisher. Her first poems appeared in the late 1970s, her first book was published in 1997, and her second and most recent book (entitled 2003) was published by Am Oved Press in 2003.
