Lisa Grunberger
Guest Poet
Lisa is the author of two books – a poetry book, Born Knowing (Finishing Line Press, 2012) and Yiddish Yoga: Ruthy’s Adventures in Love, Loss and the Lotus Pose (Harper Collins, 2009). She is a widely published poet in such journals asMudfish, The Drunken Boat, Bridges, Philadelphia Poets, Paroles des Jours, Dialogi, one of the principle Slovenian journals of literature and culture. She is the Arts and Culture Editor at the Philadeplhis Jewish Voice and an Assistant Professor in English at Temple University. She lives in Philadelphia with her family.
Witness
I dreamt of God in the witness chair,
fidgeting on the pale wood, his fingers
busy counting stars.
Twelve Richard Geres sat on the jury,
their zen-calm hands in orange-robed laps.
Geres’ gaze were steady as a drunken goat.
When the feminists stormed the court,
The judge was naked, all hell broke loose.
The lawyers scratched their porcupine heads.
Then the black letters danced around
the witness stand, danced around God,
who was filing her nails.
My mother came with an apple cake
on a grand platter with a doily and a pot
of tea, a moat filled with bullets.
Mom, when did this happen? When did you
become a traitor? Did you really love me?
I felt so loved, so secure, so needed.
I was crawling through mud, slinking
through a foreign field. I saw a child
dig a grave for his mother.
I pointed the cake at the witness.
When the Rebbe of Prague
arrived in a chariot, I didn’t know
if it was meant to be funny or sad, but
I would have done it all over again.
God bowed deeply and my mother
wiped the mud off my naked body,
and gathered the spilled bullets
with her open mouth like a dog.
Guest Poet
Lisa is the author of two books – a poetry book, Born Knowing (Finishing Line Press, 2012) and Yiddish Yoga: Ruthy’s Adventures in Love, Loss and the Lotus Pose (Harper Collins, 2009). She is a widely published poet in such journals asMudfish, The Drunken Boat, Bridges, Philadelphia Poets, Paroles des Jours, Dialogi, one of the principle Slovenian journals of literature and culture. She is the Arts and Culture Editor at the Philadeplhis Jewish Voice and an Assistant Professor in English at Temple University. She lives in Philadelphia with her family.
Witness
I dreamt of God in the witness chair,
fidgeting on the pale wood, his fingers
busy counting stars.
Twelve Richard Geres sat on the jury,
their zen-calm hands in orange-robed laps.
Geres’ gaze were steady as a drunken goat.
When the feminists stormed the court,
The judge was naked, all hell broke loose.
The lawyers scratched their porcupine heads.
Then the black letters danced around
the witness stand, danced around God,
who was filing her nails.
My mother came with an apple cake
on a grand platter with a doily and a pot
of tea, a moat filled with bullets.
Mom, when did this happen? When did you
become a traitor? Did you really love me?
I felt so loved, so secure, so needed.
I was crawling through mud, slinking
through a foreign field. I saw a child
dig a grave for his mother.
I pointed the cake at the witness.
When the Rebbe of Prague
arrived in a chariot, I didn’t know
if it was meant to be funny or sad, but
I would have done it all over again.
God bowed deeply and my mother
wiped the mud off my naked body,
and gathered the spilled bullets
with her open mouth like a dog.