ALINA GOES UP

In the elevator in Assuta Hospital I go down and up don’t hear
anything don’t wanna already five years old holding Teddy hard reach
the button fine go down and up I wish she’d hurry up and die I don’t
wanna hear.  I turned around and ran, my legs ran, it was white all the
time and lots of hallways.  Her voice and the smell of BM and cheese
and missingness caught up with me by the elevator.  I’m sure not gonna
kiss her.  She’s dead maybe, I already smelled it before.  Pyjamas all the
time without her dresses and perfume and high heels, only the pearl
earrings not my mother really.

And right after that they sent me to a kibbutz
and said Mommy’s gone to America again,
the land of unlimited possibilities, there
death scraps the skies, I travelled there to kiss
her, blind from betrayal, going up and down
all Manhattan’s elevators.  Her death stinking
sticky dark and her voice in the smell of cheese
feces reaches me, strangles, longs.
Now here I’m speaking.
I stop.
I say:
Enough. Enough.  Now Alina goes up.

ALINA GOES UP