Gili Haimovich
My father grew
Wrinkles.
Reach high as the hay.
If someone dares to harvest them
It might be possible to build a home there.
Closer to the right,
The right eyebrow, feels almost like the right location for it.
Right as my father was almost right in the way he raised me.
He made me believe I can be knowledgeable in sadness.
Well enough.
Well enough to let myself bury his attempts to uproot sadness.
I use my high forehead to keep it there.
It can’t be possible that we both have the same success in
Hiding something transparent between the folds of our skin.
Even though our legs seem to be stuck firmly in the same soil.
It doesn’t bother me to pretend I’m high on its earthy aroma.
One day I’ll shift my courageous hands to dig them out.
I don’t know how deep I will have to go.
I want to believe it will take me farther,
Away from my father,
I need to believe I can be taken farther
I need to believe I can be taken
I need to believe I need
I need to let needs
I need to be good enough in needing
To be taken.
Gili Haimovich is an Israeli – Canadian poet and translator published internationally. She has published the chapbook Living on a Blank Page (Blue Angel Press, 2008) and six volumes of poetry in Hebrew. She has been nominated as an outstanding artist in Israel (2015), and won couple of international prizes in Hong Kong by Proverse Publishers (2016) and in Italy by the Europa in Versi Poetry Festival (2017). Her work appears in journals and anthologies such as World Literature Today, Poetry International, International Poetry Review, Poem – International English Language Quarterly, LRC – Literary Review of Canada, Asymptote, Recours au Poème (with translations to French), Blue Lyra, Bakery, TOK1: Writing the New Toronto, Deep Water, Circumference, High Window, Poetry Repairs, and main Israeli literary journals. Her poems are translated to several languages. Gili works as a writing-focused arts therapist and educator.