Paper Bridges: Selected Poems of Kadya Molodowsky

II. The Low Ceiling

II The Low Ceiling Overhead, the low ceiling, The crooked window (as on a theater set), One of Rembrant's pictures (ho-ho). Probably bought at an auction, A child's bed with a high hay mattress, A bookshelf holding Tevye the Dairyman and Penek,97 A water faucet. A closet for bread and dishes, And Freydke, the housewife, shorn like a boy, With her boyish gesture. —My hands, these are oars—she says— And my head the helm, It's a shame there's no ship here, This dog house is the sea. And boyishly she rakes her hair with both hands, Her thin shadow Dances, swings, falls, Breaks upon three flights of stairs, The creaking door waits— (The door sings out a chopped-up melody, A short march, a weak sigh, Opening, closing.) Then the yard with pointy, gray stones, Then the gate and the street— The street—that barefoot, Jewish fair, O, darkness— I cannot find any words for her, That basket—of eggs, Garlic, And lemons, 287 ssn w a njnnsni j"p "T nxs jyp -px ^^ny^rs ,x •D^x^ xDjrriD ^i^n oxi 288 O, darkness, I cannot find any words for them, In a window a sewing machine labors, The wheel rattles, fillips. O, darkness— A miracle . . . right here,—a miracle, The sun has spilled a basket of gold. 289 IV H - OTIX§ ,OT1N§ •fffa ps injn ^x^ ,pjn pS ttn y n : OXTra*n&oy - CIIK •DXTNO oxn ^ymn nyi x px w nx rx; o va D^nixjr^ oxn yprn #m»-^y3 x pK W I P S x ^ r a y w ,0x1^x2 x nsny**? x •w s x pK I^XT piD3 x Dxny^ n^V oxn ^?a pK •fmp nyw^easo p^n x ^nx ^IX ypay^yp oxi px p*i?p->v bo^i x 290 ...