by Yehuda Amichai The body is the cause of love;after that, the fortress that protects it;after that, love’s prison.But when the body dies, love is set freein wild abundance,like a slot machine that breaks downand with a furious ringing pours out all at onceall the coins ofall the generations of luck.
by Yehuda Amichai I saw clay jars covered with barnaclesthat were saved from the ocean bottom,and thought about the sailors of ancient timeswho gave half their lives to sail to those jars,and the other half to bring them back here.They did what they had to do, and drowned near the shore. A woman beside me…
by Yehuda Amichai For every man in a rage there are alwaystwo or three back-patters who will calm him,for every weeper, many more tear-wipers,for every happy man, plenty of sad oneswho want to warm themselves at his happiness. And every night at least one mancan’t find his way homeor his home has moved to another…
by Yehuda Amichai When I have a stomachache, I feel likethe whole round globe.When I have a headache, laughterbursts out in the wrong place in my body.And when I cry, they’re putting my father in the groundin a grave that’s too big for him, and he won’tgrow to fit it.And if I’m a hedgehog, I’m…
by Yehuda Amichai The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimetersand the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,with four dead and eleven wounded.And around these, in a larger circleof pain and time, two hospitals are scatteredand one graveyard. But the young womanwho was buried in the city she came from,at a distance of…
by Yehuda Amichai On a roof in the Old City laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight: the white sheet of a woman who is my enemy, the towel of a man who is my enemy, to wipe off the sweat of his brow. In the sky of the Old City a kite. At the…
by Yehuda Amichai My mother comes from the days where they madepaintings of beautiful fruit in silver bowlsand didn’t ask for more.People moved through their liveslike ships, with the wind or against it, faithfulto their course.I ask myself which is better,dying old or dying young.As if I’d asked which is lighter,a pound of feathers or…
by Yehuda Amichai Forgetting someone is likeforgetting to turn off the light in the back yardso it stays lit all the next day. But then it’s the lightthat makes you remember.
by Yehuda Amichai After you left meI had a bloodhound sniff atmy chest and my belly. Let it fill its nostrilsand set out to find you. I hope it will find you and ripyour lover’s balls to shreds and bite off his cock —or at leastbring me one of your stockings between its teeth.