Just like we have everything,
We could have had nothing.
No natural law prescribes
Hot water in the tub,
Apples in the pantry,
Body cream and lotion.
Jerusalem’s Alternative
Prior to buying an air ticket and joining the Big Escape, secular Jerusalemites (plus some renegate religious ones…) have a cheaper option – an alternative… only 60 km away…
Tel Aviv
Jerusalem's Alternative
Tiger pants and tight leather,
Firm breasts over high heels,
Wafts of air picking up mini skirts,
Touching soft flesh
Coiled into ringed bellybuttons.
Touching the infinite in a mundane manner
Your feet light and easy
Along the promenade –
Round Slavic faces,
A wisp of intellectual flair
From faraway lands, mixed with:
“So I told Siggi that Tomer said…”,
And the analysis of today’s markets.
The roadside painter’s eye
Observes it all
Catching the miracle of personal uniqueness
On a 60×50 sheet for 50 shekels.
Thank you, beloved metropolis
For being there for me
Only 50 blessed minutes away
In times of need,
To breeze me back to life,
To inject the antidote
Into veins clogged with
Holiness overdose,
Hypocrisy’s overgrowths,
Stones overweight.
Shamelessly and fearlessly you expose yourself
To your critics,
Inviting them and everybody
To join the party of optimism
Only you dare to stage
Over the ashes and ruins of the Old Diaspora.
Orit Adar, 26.1.2002
All Rights Reserved
Jerusalem’s Alternative, first published in The Cellar Script, (May-June 2003), Jerusalem
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