"Hiding in Other People's Houses"

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Poems by Dori Katz
Translated into Spanish and Preface by Diana P. Valencia
Copies available : dvalenci@sjc.edu or dori.katz@trincoll.edu ($10.00) 

The Return

The light I turn on to remember you these days
is small and distant in the dark.

I go back very deeply for you, and very carefully.

One false move and I fall off your shoulder
where I placed myself at three to be carried across
rain puddles; one inadvertent slip and you are gone
while I wait for you by the kitchen window,
angry because you promised to be right back,
and I never saw you again.

How you must have felt when they arrested you,
no time to say goodbye, send messages.
They took you to that public square in Malines,

Made you line up with other Jews, then climb
into a box car: the doors are shut. Back home,
your wife, cursing your fate, burns your pictures,
your documents, packs my clothes in a basket,
then sends me to someone else's house. I squat
in a corner of a strange kitchen, crying for you.

Years pass. Your wife survives selling your things.

Converted, your daughter goes from house to home,
a different child now, quiet, tamed,
but at night she walks in her sleep
opening door after door to find you;
you are not there for you're living in Auschwitz now.
Your head is shaved, your hands swollen;
soon they will amputate a leg. You are 177679,
not Mishe Chaim anymore, not anymore

I waited for you.

I used to think of accidents, cured amnesia,
a hospital file that would turn up your name,
or that you had married again, forgotten us.

I pictured running into you on a dessert street;
you'd be walking against the wind,
dragging your bad leg behind you. As soon as
you'd recognize me the dark years would disappear like rain
drying up, or clouds pushed away by strong gusts. Other times,
I saw you as a one-legged man hopping around the house
outside, pressing his face against the window,
against my new life now all patched up.

And so I carried you for years, like salt upon the tongue,
a bitter taste always dissolving, always there;
I was afraid that you were lost, affray you'd return,
old, crippled, gray, and we'd be singled out again.

Today, it doesn't matter what I want; you have been dead
so long there's nothing left that could come back:
you are not flesh, not bone, not even dust of dust;
you are a light behind that kitchen window now,
behind that glass-a light that comes and disappears.
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El retorno

La luz que enciendo para recordarte ahora
es pequeña en la oscuridad y distante.

Regreso muy adentro por ti y con mucho cuidado.

un paso en falso y resbalo de tus hombros
donde me montaba a los tres años para cruzar
los charcos de la lluvia. Un tropiezo inadvertido y te irás,
mientras te espero tras la ventana de la cocina,
enojada, porque me prometiste volver en seguida
y no te volví a ver nunca más.

Cómo te habrás sentido cuando te arrestaron,
no hubo tiempo de decir adiós ni de mandar mensajes.

Te llevaron a la plaza pública de Malines,
te formaron con otros judíos, después trepas
en un coche cuadrado: las puertas se cierran. Mientras tanto, en casa,
tu mujer maldice tu fe, quema tus fotos,
tus documentos, empaca mi ropa en una canasta
y me manda a la casa de otros. Yo acuclillada
en el rincón de una cocina extraña, lloro por ti.

Los años pasan. Tu mujer sobrevive vendiendo tus pertenencias.

Convertida, tu hija va de su casa al hogar.

Una niña diferente: ahora quieta, mansa,
pero en las noches camina en sus sueños, 
abriendo puerta tras puerta para encontrarte.

Tú no estás en ninguna parte, ahora vives en Auschwitz,
tú cabeza está afeitada, tus manos hinchadas;
pronto te amputarán una pierna. Tú eres 177679,
no eres más Moishe Chaim, no más.

Te esperé.

Solía pensar en un accidente, amnesia curada,
un expediente de hospital que revelara tu nombre;
o quizá te hubieras casado de nuevo, olvidándonos a nosotras.

Me imaginaba corriendo hacia ti en una calle desierta;
tú caminando contra el viento,
arrastrando tu pierna lacerada junto a ti. Tan pronto
me reconocieras los años oscuros desaparecerían como lluvia
que seca, o como nubarrones deshechos por una ráfaga de viento. Otras veces,
te veía cojo, saltando alrededor de la casa
por fuera; luego, presionando tu cara contra la ventana,
contra mi nueva vida, ahora toda parchada.

Y así te cargué por años, como una brizna de sal en la punta de la lengua:
un sabor amargo, siempre disolviéndose, siempre allí;
tenía miedo que te hubieras perdido, y miedo que regresaras
viejo, lisiado, encanecido; y que nos identificaran otra vez.

Ahora no importa qué quiero, tú estás muerto
desde hace tanto, ya nada queda que pudiera retornar:

Tú no eres carne, ni huesos, ni aun polvo del polvo; 
ahora eres una luz tras la ventana de aquella cocina
tras aquel vidrio, --una luz que viene y desaparece.

West Hartford, Connecticut.
24 de septiembre, 2004
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Media Naranja

-Kevin Carey, Connecticut Review-Fall 2002 

Iron pales at a distance
separate us from others,

white spokes of citrus,
closer than graves, joining

sweet cells of memory.
We mark our differences

sharing orange halves,
newspapers, and gossip.

Obits name invisible
couples, pauses and letters, 

secret code of speech
and no-speech left

in sympathetic notes.
We cut the fruity sphere

in two, tasting halves,
serrated ins and outs,

a royal jelly, teasing
slices for our palette. 

Pleasure taken, together
we toss remains of brunch

upon the compost heap:
eggshells, lime,

coffee grounds, rinds,
scraps of living scent

bodies given over
to nature's chemicals.

Lust grows in vapors:
fluid, pulp, fermenting

spirit, when willing tongues
with our orange join.

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Gathering Cranes

-Kevin Carey, Connecticut River Review 

It's a woman's art, this folding, squares 
into triangles.
It's a woman's way, this making, things
from the common.

-deep in thought she creases tiny turns 
intricately each crisp crimp
a pleat, replete with worry-prayer, stays
the parting kiss, a hello-goodbye coming-
going hand, another bending wave
rising to tuck between the two

interlocking fingers fretting then letting
go: his silhouette cuts across the wrinkling
blue. She, bends one into two
or three increasingly complex yet

simplest nature-forms in finger-fashioned
impressions of wing-shaped presses 
on paper flesh she knows joins him
in flight and guesses he will think of her-

It's a woman's heart, this holding, touch
to intangibles.
It's a woman's clay, this molding, wings
on tangibles.

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