After Migrations

by Jerome Rothenberg

After Migrations
a variation for Gloria Gervitz (1943 —2022)

the silence of the legs
she wraps around us
more thrilling still
than words
that shower down
louder than rain
to dazzle us
like pollen
or the cries
of shofars
words & photographs
in cages
dishes shattered
where the night
brings visions
neither you nor I
immune from it
a luscious madness
grinds the bougainvilleas
into dust or froth
the steam of rivers
seeping through
our kitchens
fever ecstasy
the more she masturbates
the more a whiteness
echoes through the water
beckoning a sexual kol nidre
a recklessness of clouds
green waters
the vertigos of rosh hashana
a background marked
by absences
as much as not
daylight erupting
in the east
the season too
when violets
bring madness
their voluptuousness
like yours or mine
our porches heavy
with their swelling
vagrant like acacias
in our dreams
of death & dying
verandas plastered over
syrups splashing
into empty washbasins
the delights of silence
of prayers with scents & colors
signal a break
a gulf insomnia exposes
a rosary lost in a synagogue
that raises questions
like a shattered faucet
air that snaps a willow
death that brings all willows down
like red fruit
turning brown
like fermentations bringing perfumes
to your fingers
less than nothing
like the wings of seagulls flapping
like saliva oozing
years a grandmother might count
reading the Zohar in a bathtub
whimsical & mad
like forced migrations
on a summer day

1.vi.22