last year in Jerusalem

 

last year in Jerusalem

 

hungry for sunshine

shakshuka, kofta and falafel,

I took a plane to Israel

 

memories of Yemenite cooking

from Falafel Hateimani...

 

(near the Ethiopian Embassy by the Street of the Prophets

(Rehov Hanevi’im) where Holman Hunt, who painted

The Scapegoat, built number 64)

 

...and pitta dipped in baba ganoush

from a pavement cafe on the Arab side

tease my taste buds still

 

at a café in the shade of Gehenna

I lunched on olives and hummus,

a sweet potato and prune tagine,

a demitasse of Al-Qahwa

and a glass too many Goldstars

 

I ambled the ‘canyons’ of Givat Oranim,

greeting strangers,

“salaam alaikum… shalom… turned out nice again… ”

                              who ignored 'some shuffling drunk'

 

encouraged by police whistles,

and shouted Hebrew imprecations,

I stumbled the intersection

to the Valley of Gazelles

where I sprawled, flat out, belly up,  

on a sun-bleached scorching bench

 

the gazelles are shy and rarely seen.

 

I glimpsed a slender female,

camouflaged in her coat,

(white and opaque couché)

grazing a thicket of thorns

 

as I looked into her eyes,

deep into her eyes,

 

she jerked her head away,

a look I had seen before,

 

in a moment I knew 

that I knew that creature.

 

I had loved her 

a lifetime before,

when she was a girl.