ZALI GUREVITCH


My grandmother
Gurevitch
came to America
in 1908
after a pogrom
devastated a village
in her heart
she learnt English
from the first day
yet read Yiddish as well
she left her sister
in the Russian pale
sent Care packages
to her until 1952
until Stalin stopped them
I tried in to find her in Israel
or any remnant of her family
did they survive Hitler
or the Gulag
for instance,
but there were so many
Gureviches listed
in so many files
I adopted you, Zaki
the poet who spoke to me
in the Jerusalem night
as an angora cat walks by me
on Ben Yehuda Street
wanting like any of our people
only to be loved.