poem. after four hours of studying midrash rabbah for a divinity school seminar.

i'm a belzer granddaughter:
before the war
i would have been a princess
with a gutful of bloody snow
and now my ears and teeth are caught on the jug handles of letters
in dense choirs in dark homilies in you little book
I am a shade speaking
with heavy breasts weak ankles like the women in pinafores
in the photos who brewed up feeselahs and burned by the ton
little book I kiss you when I close you
minefield of axioms and abbreviations
forbidden to me and bidden to me by blood
yours great-uncle meshulum of yeshivat volozhin
and yours little rina who got three cries out and died
under hundreds of thin trees that pricked the moon over galicia
and now the little book hungers for me to stroke its dowdy spine
homely bound like me restless against my palms