Cherry Picking
Once, I ate a whole bucket of cherries.
Riding home in the back seat, Mom and
daughters, just picked them and they were warm
with juice, trapped in their tight tart
skin- dark as tiny bruised hearts. I was
greedy. Each sweet fleshy sphere,
dissected between my tooth, tongue and
cheek. I kept the window down, breathed in desert
dirt air like hay and horses; spit stained pits
at each fence post. Face flushed with juice,
wind shaped me into a cherry-eater.
My skin tight, the sun felt suddenly too hot.
When we got home- smooth red welts draped
across my face and neck. As if I was so full
of those cherries, I swelled with their juice.
As though it was rising to the surface to find some escape.
Gerald Stern
He kissed me on the cheek once, he
did, right here on the right where my cheek would
dimple if it could- I was driving
him back to his hotel talking Jewish
things like why some people say Temple or
Synagogue and for once I felt more secure
in my Jewishness because
I was looking for it then
my mom had just died and here was he, Mr. Stern
who Anne Marie, with her burning warmth
of a smile, called Gerry and he had come as
if to be my own mentor, my Zadie,
he sang Chattanooga Choo Choo and listened
to me talk awhile. And
now listening to Bei Mir Bist du Schon
I am caught in its history and how
with its change from Yiddish to English
I feel so strongly it is linked to mine
if simply because I had breathed its notes
for so long and never known it until now
and like him I am only taken by
how much love I have, razing its way
through my chest, and yes
now, the way my brain works.