Anything or nothing draws forth the screams—
blank terror at this hard-boned world,
cruel in its unfiltered light,
deafening calls. Squacks. Ambulance wails. And the
empty air that envelopes without embracing, no
floating in tender waters, no skylight of skin.
Gapping
hollow of hunger
inching from the site of severance, the curled conch shell of
joining—now gone. Whirlpool of desolation.
Knock on the belly. Cling to the breast.
Lap the thin blue liquid, so different from the glow-red
milk, brimmed with iron and rust, that framed the home
not here—not seen—try as you might to burrow it
open, raking with kitten claws,
pounding, wailing. Inconsolable. Everlasting
quest—nostos, the saga of
return. After the hero is pressed forth—
scramble back, sailing ships over sighing seas,
terror and tears and the long
undulating nights of mourning, worldsorrow
vast and deep, a
well of weeping, trying to
X out the world, and
yourself, and every sound and sight and smell, all returned to the enveloping
zero, holding the being before becoming.

Batnadiv HaKarmi

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