MEMORIAL DAY 2007

I stand on the porch
with my son in my arms.
It’s 11 o’clock
and the first siren in his life
sounds.

The green pacifier falls from his mouth,
his hands clutch my chest,
and his head sways like a small radar system:
round eyes roving, searching
for the source of the noise that split open
the milk morning.

I smell the scent of his thin, silky hair,
remembering his circumcision at the end of the war,
and the rabbi proclaiming:
“His name in Israel will be called: Idan Shalom!”
And the knife sheds a tiny drop of blood.

יום הזכרון 2007

יום הזכרון 2007