My Mum kissed my Dad in the back of that mosque When it was still the Gaumont — They went to see Laurence Olivier play a Basque And she wound up with me after nine months
She always walks past the peeled film poster with a sigh — “I wonder when that boy goes for a pray there If it delivers the same high, That same particular lost glaze when you come downstairs!”
I wonder if he knows when he Salaams That I was once a tongue twist and a fumble Right where he tries to feel the hum Of the universe, I was an unexpected gamble.
And my Mum bundled me up in wool And spoon-fed me sweet hot sugar, And I reached my hand out and saw it all Turn into a voice saying, “Please take your seats now.”
Back then just Dad with his hand On her thigh in the whole world was what mattered. Only the light and the sound Of the screen as it winked, then guttered.
And out I came, no one’s to blame, Nobody knows who’s a live one. Just some go to kneel on a carpet at noon And some feel the light all at once and turn to hear their name called.
Atar Hadari’s “Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of H. N. Bialik” (Syracuse University Press) was a finalist for the American Literary Translators’ Association Award and his debut poetry collection, “Rembrandt’s Bible”, was published by Indigo Dreams. “Lives of the Dead: Poems of Hanoch Levin” is forthcoming from Arc Publications. He is a member of the BML music theatre workshop and currently contributes a monthly verse bible translation column to MOSAIC magazine.