A Literary Magazine in Support of the Jewish Community
Kaddish on Jane Street
Papa tuck my blankets in tight move your chair toward the fire
show me how we mourn the dead in branches
of the old chestnut tree on Isestraße I carved her initials in black bark
intoned their names beneath the arch at Washington Square
cleansed by the freezing fountain I fold moth-eaten handkerchiefs
between pages of a prayer book while my tiny soldiers fly
model bombers through patchwork fields cover the mirrors
quiet fingers brush the spidery dark on platforms derelict train stations
faint aroma of nutmeg & tobacco my leather suitcase neatly packed
& from the scuttle hatch we spy informants
with January stares reaching firmly for the banister inhale
her brown coat did buttons catch on barbed wire the warden’s sneer
your tea gone cold Papa as you pray I clasp my hapless pilot in my fist
whisper Mama is dead watch as we graveyard spiral
onto paving stones thick with foreign snow
Still, life
Laying down her brush in extreme fatigue
she pays attention to her posture, an apple
core balanced atop a freshly scrubbed table.
To February’s strident chimneys, curling
their lip at the yellowing snow. From an upstairs
room her granddaughter laughs, an aria with sharp
edges. She listens to The Goldberg Variations
the fret, the hurry, the stir. Ignores the drawing
room’s silk cushions, bought on a whim that spring
in Toulouse. Teaspoons tremble on the sideboard
tarnished with their own importance. She admires
the wainscotting’s hairline cracks, a riot of bay leaves
consigned to forgotten suppers. Pays close attention
to the pitch of her easel, heel of her paint. Accepts
another attic-bound canvas, death’s ill-fitting slippers.
Celebrates the silence of a pinecone, the curve, the ridge,
the stir. Draws velvet drapes against the years & murmurs
It is done. It is finished. I have had my vision.
Rebecca Faulkner
Rebecca Faulkner is a London-born poet based in Brooklyn. The author of Permit Me to Write My Own Ending (Write Bloody Publishing, 2023), her work appears in New York Quarterly, The Maine Review, The Poetry Society of New York, CALYX Press, Berkeley Poetry Review and elsewhere. She is a 2023 poetry recipient of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women, a finalist for the 2023 Desert Rat Poetry Prize, and the 2022 winner of Sand Hills Literary Magazine’s National Poetry Contest. Rebecca was a 2021 Poetry Fellow at the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. She holds a BA in English Literature & Theatre Studies from the University of Leeds, an MA in Performance Studies from NYU, and a Ph.D. from the University of London. She is currently at work on her second collection of poetry, exploring female identity and artistic endeavor. She can be found at www.rebeccafaulknerpoet.com.
