Chana Bloch Poems

Apprehended and held without trial,
our friend was sentenced:
brain tumor, malignant.
Condemned each day to wake
...

We remember the rabbit when we see
the duck, but we cannot experience
both at the same time
...

1

FAT
is the soul of this flesh.
Eat with your hands, slow, you will understand
...

"Make flour into dough," she answers,
"and fire will turn it into food.
Ash is the final abstraction of matter.
You can just brush it away."
...

On the crown of his head
where the fontanelle pulsed
between spongy bones,
a bald spot is forming, globed and sleek
as a monk's tonsure.
...

My mother said what she thought.
If my father looked up from the paper
to inquire, sotto voce,
where the hell anyone would get such a dumb idea,
...

for my father

You and I used to talk about
Lear and his girls
(I read it in school,
...

There was a ghost at our wedding,
the caterer's son,
who drowned that day.
...

1
We speak too fast.
The child sits at our table, waiting
his turn. The clock
points a sharp finger. The daily
...

When I was the Baba Yaga of the house
on my terrible chicken legs,
the children sat close on the sofa as I read,
...