Jehanne Dubrow: Three Poems

Kosher Dills | At Mel Krupin's | Icon of the Black Madonna

Kosher Dills

In the Scroll of Ruth, Naomi
kvetches her way to Bethlehem,

each tear like vinegar, each step
seeding the dirt with sorrow plants.

I went out full, she weeps to Ruth.
And even though she eats a sack

of dates along the way, her gut
spills over pickle-sourness.

Naomi can’t forget her years
as refugee, how bitterness

brined her name while others called
her sweet, her mothertongue preserved

to keep its tart and liquid flesh.
Perhaps she grieves in the Yiddish of

my family, a bottled song,
the garlic words of those who fled

but thirsted for return, asking
for fruit but tasting salt instead.

At Mel Krupin's

Jewish deli,
Washington, D.C.

It’s always a feast day here, forever
the appetite
which comes after a fast: chopped liver,
the calm simplicity of black-and-white
cookies, whose icing gleams
with shadow and its opposite, no in-between, plastic
bowls of kosher dills, perspiring cans of cream
soda or celery tonic
to sing and fizzle down the throat,
always corn beef, thin-cut
as pages from a prayer book, translucent whisper on the rye,
cheese blintzes pale beneath their coats
of cherry sauce, always donuts,
and luminous wedges of keylime pie.

Icon of the Black Madonna

Częstochowa, Poland

Poor thing—she took an arrow to the throat,
then robbers stripped the stones that lined her frame.
They slashed her twice across the cheek. Restored,

she showed these cuts despite ten coats of paint
and never healed, preferring to recall
each sacrilegious touch. Like other girls,

she learned that scars could make her beautiful.
One time she chose to save the town, chasing
three thousand Swedes away. Her eyes could break

a man or heal him of his sins. Sometimes
she watched while armies rumbled through.
As for her face, it’s black from candle smoke

and age, or black because she’s Byzantine,
or black because she’s seen the darkness crawl
like spiders on her skin, and can’t forget.

Poet's Biography:

Jehanne Dubrow was born in Vicenza, Italy and grew up in Yugoslavia, Zaire, Poland, Belgium, Austria, and the United States. She is currently pursuing a PhD in creative writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, Tikkun, The New England Review, and Poetry Northwest