All My Loves
A sky that doesn’t falter, clean of smoke of ash
again blueing the foundation of my memory that soul psalm, Barchi Nafshi
from all those loves I held like trampled flowers
that fell between the pages of a book
Please don’t judge me.
all I am worth are two teeth of a tortoise-shell comb, from Dohenet,
a shoe crushed like a mouth without questions, or names bundled
and borne on the back of a camel dropped at the post-master
at port-side customs; they didn’t die for my sake Nor did I
die for their suffering; the day your womb abandoned me
to love that comes in lover’s smoke a vow
so unwise to cry for me. Neither am I alone
in these lost worlds. What we can understand
here is a dried flower between the pages of a book that will return
without the root to survive:
This poem first appeared in The LA Review https://losangelesreview.org/three-poems-by-abba-kovner-translated-by-rachel-neve-midbar/
Abba Kovner