ISSUE 48
August 2010

Marcela Sulak

 

Marcela Sulak is the author of Immigrant (Black Lawrence Press, 2010) and Of All the Things That Don't Exist, I Love You Best (Finishing Line Press, 2007). She has translated three book-length collections of poetry from Bohemia and Congo-Zaire. Currently she directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Creative Writing Program at Bar-Ilan University.

Jerusalem    

In the covered shuk an orange was the only source of light,
the spices snored in canvass bags all night in Jerusalem.

There are always scored stones above, curtains, flags below,
shifting their gravity from shoe to shoe in tight-fitting Jerusalem.

The cracks in the Western Wall are soaked in prayers,
the doves are scraps of light above Jerusalem.

The Mount of Olives crouches over the Wailing Wall:
bleached bone, bleached stone, sun-crumbled white Jerusalem.

Like teeth broken on what they've been given to say,
rows and rows of white boxes, asleep against the might of Jerusalem.

Bullet holes are horizontal, rain-bored holes are vertical.
The pools, the ritual baths fill themselves in the sight of Jerusalem.

No other city has drunk so much ink;
who from the sages would know how to write, but for Jerusalem?






 

 

Marcela Sulak: Poetry
Copyright ©2010 The Cortland Review Issue 48The Cortland Review