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It's a chilly afternoon for Tel Aviv,
but we swim like we used to
and shiver and laugh,
because we’re not that old,
though I’m fat and bald,
but as soon as I visit you, you—
No! You don’t turn me young and thin and hairy again.
Instead, you teach me the Hebrew
for loving a land
even when bad guys win,
for you've shown me the movements
for dancing on sand
with partners whom you pray to change.
Zev Shanken lived in Israel in the mid-1960s before, during and after the 1967 Six Day War. His poems “Twilight of the Greatest Generation” and “High Noon” appeared in earlier issues of TheNewVerse.News. Last year, Full Court Press released his selected poems Memory Tricks.
