SHOSHANA VEGH

 

Sewing Machine

 

When my brother was killed

All the wires were unraveled on

President Street in Ashkelon

Dad wanted to reconcile Mom

And bought her a sewing machine

New camp on Ha'aliya Street

in Tel Aviv

 

Mom and I drove

Once a week to teach

Reconnected the wires in return

Dad was willing

That mom found some interest in life

And bought for her

Threads in all colors

We've been through it all

To give

 

It did not help Dad

Mother did not sew on the new machine

The wires were untied

 

If could have stitched my brother's wounds

In a simple sewing thread

That the blood will not flow

That there will be no bereavement

 

 

The Kitchen

 

 For many years my father has been missing my mother's food.

 She was the chief of the Shabbat table

 Laying on the white map the influence of the greenery of the land

 Lays down the basket, lays down the meat

 Place the tomatoes and garlic

 She knew how to cook.

 

 This is how the taste of the food came from it to us

 And so she would bind us like cookies Yo-Tunisians

 Sweet cookies dipped in liquid sugar

 Who would have added my grandmother if they had allowed her

 

 But here in the israel my mother used to make the salads very thin

 In order to capture us at the Sabbath table.

 

 I did not learn a foreign language

 from my parents

 My parents spoke to each other in a different language

 My father asked for sweets in Polish

 My mother is a mature Tunisian

 And I did not learn from them a foreign language

 I only sucked Hebrew from a mother who was not her mother tongue

 She spoke to her sisters in French

 In Arabic

 And in that distant Jewish dialect.

 

 In the kitchen I did not learn a foreign language

 Hebrew only

 

 

Orphanhood

 

When Mom died

It was a rainy February

Hysterical crying for a whole year

 

When Dad's died

The month of May and Spring

He returned

Through the bedroom window

Pray with us

And put on tefillin

Like a religious man

And as butterfly

On the days of the seven days

 

And now they are properly rested

 

SHOSHANA VEGH