I S S U E  8

Jacqueline Saphra

Jew

a word that wriggles on the tongue—honey, beast and almond, the soup of the afflicted, the
wanderer, the tailor, usurer, the book, the beard, the flat-cap communist, capital conspiracy, the ducat and the lamb, the red sea parting, slaughter and the slaughterer, the ones who pass, the ones who don’t, the nose, the noses

no, don’t speak of those

the ten plagues, keeper of the Word, the shabbos hats, the shtetl and the noise, the silence and the Sunday luncheon tongue, the chicken head, the chicken feet, the yellow chicken fat, the yellow star

no, step away, not them, not that

the interloper, interleaver, interbreeder, sadist bomber, the broken glass, the kosher red, the Reb, the dross, the shekels and the silver and the arcane script, the pointer, the art of secular, the swastika

but why go there, don’t go there

the dispossessed, the voyages, the drowned, the candles and the soup of dread, the dread of soup, the soap, six million dead

don’t dwell on that again

the chutzpah, chuppah, the marriage and the get, the minyan, the Chosen

no, don’t use that word

deep soup of despair, the bread, the shabbos chollah and the oven

no, there’s too much inference in there

the Nobel and the intellect, the where, where, not here, diaspora, the klezmer, mazeltov, the shabbos bride, the candlestick, the Yiddishkeit, the pogrom

no, too grim, too grim

the tribe, what tribe, whose tribe am I, the exodus, the shabbos goy, the sheitel maker, the soup of synagogue, the bagel-meister, lox, messiah, grave-digger, the mark upon the door, the vengeful god, the smoking tower and the big black boot

what did I tell you? leave that one out

the blintze, herring and gefilte fish, the just god, no damn god, the circumcision and the guilty god, the innocent, the pelt, the golden calf, blood sacrifice, the millionth haggadah, the freedom and the desert blooming, the grind of the no-goodnik heart, the loss, the loss, and the broken homeland kissed and coveted and lost, the Uzi and the uniform, the gun, the camps, the walls, the mortars and the firing squad

no no, move on, move on

diaspora, diaspora, the song, the song of sanctuary, forgotten song, the broken tongue, what song, what song

Where?

Not this England tight with inference
and understatement, the language
ancient, the marriages recorded,
the christenings and funerals dated,
the graves traceable and visited.

Not this England: edgy, hedged,
and fenced; the safety of the tribe.
Homeland, border, territory, clan.

Open your mouth and taste the word Jew.
How it lurks uncertain under the tongue.
Now try Belzec, Diaspora, Palestine.

Square Mile

. . . the dark heart of Britain, the place where democracy goes to die, immensely powerful, equally unaccountable.
—George Monbiot

The City shows you England’s heart, they claim,
and so I take a walk. First, Shiteburn Lane,

only to find a trumped-up mayor and his crew
trading their votes for gold; I thought I knew,

but still I gag at the perpetual stink
of this inheritance: the Freemen, dick to dick

who kick and thrust into the cunt of history,
don’t care I’m there, or even notice me.

Onward to Glasshouse Yard: behind these walls,
Aldermen throw stones in ceremonials

of bank and hustle, strut the victor’s dance,
bleed blue between bright glints of splintered glass,

drink to the bitch democracy and laugh.
Ye olde liveries pant in the dark

in Cock Lane, where the trusty men of state
would gather, gossip and ejaculate

in days of yore. Listen: their long-lost whores
scream torrents for the broken and the poor

and beg for change that never comes. Hope creeps
back into bed, hangs loose a while, then sleeps.

In Houndsditch, dead dogs howl for love, and piss
into the void while at the gates of this

debacle, lackey dragons snort and shit.
I head on home. Try not to think of it.

Jacqueline Saphra lives in London and her most recent collection is One Hundred Lockdown Sonnets (Nine Arches Press, 2021).