Jessica Ramer
The Mourner
One of the most stupid myths is that victims become better through their suffering.
When I awaken in the middle of the night,
the first thing I hear is the sound of your
voice as you forced yourself to sound pleased,
trying and failing like a drunk lighting
a cigarette but without the comedy.
Before, I would have lain awake in silent tears,
but now, like the elder in Dostoyevsky’s novel,
I bow before you in silence, forehead on the ground.
The Prostitute
Humiliations are worse than shootings. To beat a man in
front of his children is worse than shooting him.
Stop trying to prove something to me.
You are insulting me.
Do you think by criticizing the prime minister
and the Rebbe that they—whoever “they” are
next time, will say, “He is one of the good ones.
Let him live”? Do you really expect goodness
to count for so much? How many troops does
the Pope have and would he use them to help you?
The answers are none and no. And the old black hat
is dead, so let him rest in peace.
And yet, I remember sitting in an outdoor cafe
before I had hardened myself into the mold
of my new life, as you took the teapot
from my trembling hands and poured for me
as though serving an honored guest.
That is why, although I could never believe in you,
You remain the man my thoughts turn to when I am alone.
To wish you happiness is cruel,
so I wish for you what you can have:
rage that binds your broken voice together
transporting you past barbed wire fences
to good meals and sound sleep.
The Mute Girl
Justice cannot be divided. Either there is justice for everyone or there is justice for no one.
Freed of that gauzy veil of words swaddling sight,
The mute girl sketches the prophet in deft strokes
As he plucks a Beilstein from the unruly heap
of books in his travel bag. Her drawing peels off
intellectual detachment, reveals the prison-cast calm,
shadowed eyes, and that slight asymmetry
beaten into children who have known hunger.
He glances at her drawing: she sees
what he does not as he trims his mustache in the mirror.
He gazes off into the distance and nods, almost imperceptibly.
But this mute girl would hope
The rebbe you despise is right:
May his god in whom you don’t believe
and in whom I don’t believe
send you tumbling back for the joy
it is your task to obtain, to sing in your unbroken
voice and write the poetry stolen from you.
Jessica Ramer is a third-year PhD student in poetry at the University of Southern Mississippi.
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