MARCELA SULAK

Shekhinah, a prayer

I don’t shake before the dry yeast that elevates the loaf,
and when I measure the flour, the wheat does not rattle in the fields.

When I break the first egg, break the second, the chickens
do not pause in their pecking, the insects in the grass

continue to hide behind their blades. Companion
is still one who shares my bread. The wreckage

of the Byzantine village scores the hillsides
of Srigim-Li-on, a wine press and an olive press,

beside a fig tree, and as wildly implausible
as it seems, I am alive today. I do not tremble

before Shabbat, I do not fear the shekhinah
will reveal my poverty in the shadow of her light.

I know I am her mirror, and because I am here,
everything will be brighter.

The soup plates will not break,
tonight. I will place roses in their vase, candles in their sticks.

I have passed coins and cloth back and forth
with the father of the other Marcela, which

is what we call the tailor, and from the grocer;
I have stored. I have run next to the Yarkon River,

keeping pace with the current,
and then I have dragged myself against it.

I will not falter before the blessings of today.

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Marcela Sulak’s poems are from the forthcoming City of Sky Papers, her fourth collection. She’s written memoir, Mouth Full of Seeds and co-edited Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres. Sulak is associate professor of literature at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv, Israel.