Grandmother's Text

By Judy Belsky¹

the first time I cross an ocean
I am an onion
    my grandmother hides me in the hold of the ship
she combs wayward ends of silk
tucks my tender skin
in velvet folds
she inverts me
roots first
she smoothes protective membranes
around the cell
where the code to my identity is stored
    to the rhythm of surf
she sings a lullaby
Somos Judios
her face is a map
engraved with longitudes of exile
gravity pulls her back
wind pushes her forward
she hovers in the air
over two small graves
shaded by willow branch
    she leans over me while I sleep
she teaches me the circular dialect of her arms
small sentries over a citadel
the steps in her dance:
move away move away another way home
    she leans over me while I sleep
to enter my dreams

Somos Judios
through her skin I smell the aromatic earth
wild roses in her garden
she is happier on land
the ocean erodes memories
with no embankment to settle against
on a road she can leave markers
encode footprints in the earth
when the Jews leave Egypt
there is a road
even where there was a sea
    she scatters breadcrumbs in the air
a gull catches them in his beak
he soars high on the blessing in her dough
    on deck they stand beneath the moon
their prayers glint like silver seeds
in the dark loam of the ocean
Kavana moves constellations
the captain keeps tacking, tacking to compensate
    on the final dawn
across a porous horizon
trees begin to name themselves
    the customs official asks my grandmother
what is wrapped in velvet?
This?
Nada
Just paper
    I dissolve into paper
for twenty years I am her text
stained with her breath
the secret of her intentions
the leitmotif of her prayer
her sacred architecture
bone white arches light slips past
blueprints of the Temple
fine twined linen
blue, purple and scarlet silks
patterns for two-sided embroidery
the necessity of beauty
    remedies for healing
her bone chant over the dead
how to wash away sin
and leave innocence swathed in white shrouds
    the rhythm of birth
the quickening of anticipation
written over the history of terror
    the history of wandering
what to leave and what to take
how to ease yourself from a landscape
boundaries intact
how to ease your thoughts away from one language
and into another
how to embed an urgent message
under your tongue
Somos Judios
    texts written in flight
inscribed in parchment
the rise and fall of her cursive
in spaces between births
snatches of psalms
for each one born in Jerusalem
another longs for her
    snatches of psalms
between bits of conversation
between volumes of Talmud
I sleep for forty years

I awaken as a girl

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1 Judy Belsky is a writer, artist and clinical psychologist. She lives in Israel. She has published a memoir and several volumes of poetry. One of her main themes is her Sephardic background in Seattle, Washington. A second memoir in progress is entitled The Passover Scarf.