poem for passover

My country of many things
was carved out of a book, a bomb.
Here I am, up north, in its fervid army of blossoms.
My sister’s boyfriend balances his Uzi on his lap
and sticks his tongue out fiercely when he peels an egg.
He is just twenty, and ties his boots around his neck
by their laces sometimes, to store them.
I have spent so many hours in houses
of prayer that turn eastward, here
where the light begins, and burns away answers.
All along the road up here,
metal silhouettes of tractors
burned ochre in the highway lamps,
and three scripts, still as three rows
of seeds, lit up green highway signs.
Tonight we’ll sing the story of a book,
a river of blood.
And the moon will peer like a peeled egg
over a hundred cypresses.