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Mare Leonard
Israeli Family Trip
The husband takes a wrong turn driving along a curvy mountain road toward The Redwoods.
This mishap, a simple mistake–no crash, no flip over cliffs provokes his wife’s fear of heights, forces her to yell out, “You have to turn around, ohh, you’re killing me!” Their child in the back of the van cries out, “I’m going to get sick, stop, Mommy. I need…”
*Saba, *Savta, on a Thanksgiving visit, sit close, stare at Waze, try to find a way out. “Please close your eyes, meditate, breathe, dear Adi.” The cliff is steep, no guard rails to hold them back. Adi twists, turns, sweats in her phobic attack. Her Israeli family soothes with lullabies: Your kind eyes/I saw before…and I’m still longing.
Those who live in a land of terror sing in sweet tones while home in Israel, a man slashes a tourist’s face on the Teyelet, a woman lights a fire in Haifa to burn down the country, and since it’s America’s biggest shopping day, Saba tosses some Israeli humor into the air, “Our Black Friday.”
And on the news, the family hears: a suicide bomber detonated himself on Dizengoff Street at the moment a brother and sister, home from the beach, step down from a bus. The brother dies, the sister falls to the sidewalk. She can’t yell, “You’re killing me,” only softly begs, “Ema, Mommy.” No one to sing, “Your kind eyes,” No one to guide her over the cliff.
*grandpa *grandma
About the writer:
Mare Leonard teaches workshops for all ages through the Institute for Writing and Thinking and the MAT program at Bard College. Most recently she published in Perfume River’s two volumes re Vietnam and a landay in Figroot.
Image: Untitled by Cyril Larvour (contemporary). Fine art photograph. No technical information specified. 2017. By permission.
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprint Buttonhook Press, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation supporting writers and artists worldwide.
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