Translated Poetry: Between Our Tongues (in Hebrew)

Ima dripped between your lips

rolling in it the salty taste of the sea

and the smells of citrus fruits at the beginning of winter

like the sweet drop of milk

that my tongue was forcefully cut from

Mummy carried an arrow of love

from your tongue to my belly

an estranging mix of

trembling panic and honey

like a chill of excitement when I lost my way

alone in a foreign city

But when you asked who I am, Ima or mummy

a dry landscape of in between tongues stretched for a moment before us

as a promise for things yet unsaid in any language

and for a flickering time, I could imagine

walking together on the outer rim of

a new scenery of translation

hand in hand in an other mother tongue

two last beads in a broken chain.

You sent me poetry letters

you asked me to reveal their folded magic

the erupting lava within your

golden round handwriting.

Naked, stood the words

before my gaze

foreign signs of unfamiliar language.

I craved to catch fire but

the readings of my eye crucified the letters

and the touch of my fingers

like Midas

holding his daughter.

is a child embracing, clinching

hanging onto your ankle

embedded in the work of translation

Migratory birds are caught

from time to time too

in the mist net.

Greeted with a golden embrace

that will be attached to their feet

interpellated

through the ring of immigration

Beyond bits of sugar

Beyond crumbs of sand

Beyond scraps of written letters

My love.