(For my Niece, Gracie, whose telephone message from a Death Camp near Prague reached me—in the throws of depression-- on Mother’s Day, 2007.)

A wind so dark it breaks up branches, shatters poles
Jew bodies burned-- Jew spirits shake the trees--
Inside my head, the horror blows & blows
Those demons howling in your wind—they’re me --

Born of the holocaust— I swallow fear
Like food & suffer childhood without end
I choose a man as cold as wind is where
You are & cling & break & will not bend

I need Him like the embryo -- the womb --
Which hasn’t yet developed hand nor eye
& weave around myself a howling tomb
of father-darkness -- Jewish memory--

This wind that burns with cold—its name is Life
Quick—cut the cord—Our Father—here’s a knife

Jd 5/13/07