Body heat, detached from the snuggle,
I thank you, I say
Putting my hand to the plug
To stop the charge, so it will cease its current
And light a new light in the cell that stilled
During the hours of my sleep.
Between bright green and the wall’s lilac
I recognise the socket for the charger and at once discern
Between the sense of eloquence and sense of solitary light ringing around
Which is deep in my inbox.
My right hand takes hold of a black box, binds a strap
And turns about the body heat. My eyes look to the glass
Where my longing is etched
And chicks chirp an umbilical cord of song in me.
I rose early tied by a cord to your wellbeing
Which is unknown,
To forty hidden days
To the fear of gathering clues that go to waste.
I choose to believe
That I can weave and patch the breach
That you have surely risen now to your day’s routines
But you look to the vines on the hut
And keep your peace.
This very morning you skipped in Judea’s hills
In a one-speed on a drop five times your height.
The morning service I hallucinated to exist
In the walls of a prayer house, with panes facing the dawn that comes
You wound up with a black ratchet
Binding two wheels to the chariot
And wheeled about.
Between my imagination and the dawn: who are you?
And between dawn and the rub: Who made you?
We asked a hope –
You in the water of the Lemon Spring and I in the waters of the River Prat
Rise, dry off and look.
We did not know that when the phylactery straps came to your hands
Threads started pulling to the ground,
To what were the possibilities
And baggage became surplus to what was required.
Translated by: Atar Hadari
Read Hebrew Version: חוּטִים
