By Geula Geurts –
for Rachel Goldberg-Polin:
In this city there are women
who’ve had their bellies split open
seven times to fulfill the mitzvah
of multiplying fruit, the holiest seed
in the pomegranate spills out
red & wet, a commandment
so fierce it can only be the hand of Fear
Himself pounding down
on her body, bringing forth
the next generation
as she turns vessel—limestone skin,
the city’s streets colored flesh.
On every corner you’ll find faces
& scars, pilgrims scratching on posters
in endless search of that one birth
to end all births. Is that why
she keeps on dividing Herself
into more & more? Why everyone claims
a piece of her peace?
Abraham, says Sarah, you are plain wrong.
& He knows not to ask the mother
to place the child on the bedrock,
to plaster another decade of soldiers
into the walls, blood-thin mortar
& captives crumbling under the weight
of the final temple. Mother Rachel
& her lasting wail.
Geula Geurts is a Dutch born poet and essayist living in Jerusalem. ‘Jerusalem Caesarean’ is the first poem in our ‘Scarred Series.’
