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| Hamas fighters stormed the Nova festival on 7 October and killed hundreds. |
The evening river is gray jade,
the tree line charred pink.
Rose quartz earring
rescued from the roadside,
shelters in my palm.
I remember Jerusalem—the golden
Dome of the Rock hazed out
in dust storms, random stabbings
canceling my trip
to the Temple Mount
also called Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Different people worship the same places,
sometimes under different names.
Red alert on D’s phone—incoming
missile—D says she leapt
from her car into a ditch.
My birthday, I sit alone in a Tel Aviv café,
alarm shrieking—yet none move
to shelter, everyone chatting, trusting
the Iron Dome to intercept.
Few can speak of it now:
trance music, dawn cocktails,
missile light mistaken for fireworks,
then sudden noises of death—
After, women’s bodies mutilated,
some missing the bottom half—
Survivors almost not
here—eyes hollow,
speechless they shake
with the silence of living.
The darkness you saw, we’re going to bring back
the light, therapists tell them.
Sometimes only a small body
part remains, a finger, a foot, a hand,
trace of mascara on eyelashes,
an earring she put on that morning.