The Thread

by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg

My mother singing “Tora Lora Lora,”
an Irish lullaby although we were Brooklyn Jews.
The vacuum’s roar muffled by shag carpeting
while the birch banged on the hapless window sill.
The humming refrigerator in the middle of the night
when everyone slept or paced alone in the old house.
The chants encasing me in each swaying note
as I wrapped my thin arms around my cold chest
in the cavernous synagogue.  The creak of the swing
as I turned horizontal, defying gravity in the static
of the transistor radio.  The old staccato of my father’s anger.
The loud slap on the bass notes of the bare torso
making new bruises, then the slow breath pacing in
until the danger was gone.  All the possibilities in each
novel about a girl born afraid but about to enter the calm pond
of my life and swim.  Bike tires on wet pavement at dawn.
The first kiss in the back of the school bus broken by applause.
How rain parts its pouring for thunder’s interior roar.
The mornings revved up like motorcycles, the exhaling speed
of rivers, starving for new ground or betrayed by rocks
toward the remembering willows, singing reed by reed.
The happy rhythm of the subway rocking my spine
in and out of alignment with the dark, tunneling
through water, all the buzzing bodies ferrying millions of cells
into sound, the miracle of one rushing animal carrying us all.