When I moved recently, I suddenly found
my forgotten Bible:
A Bar-Mitzvah present, the only thing
I took with me when I deserted the home of my youth
for forty years in the desert.
I leafed through the book: some pages stuck together
as in a classified secret. Cain, of course, is still murdering his brother.
For every murder, two other brothers sprout up in the field.
Goliath takes off his armor and goes out to lunch
From his eternal battle with the little Israelite.
The Philistine’s head is already adorned with rubber bullets
like kinky curls. The first astronaut.
Elijah shoots up in a storm to heaven in a regular launch.
Locally made UFO’s sail in the skies of Ezekiel.
I continue skimming: the pages had already blackened with blood,
gory wars that continue on their own.
Only the sins remain like white stains, prophets
disappear from the book to prophesize far away. Kings
escaped to the Diaspora. Angels flew back to the caves of the firmament.
From his couch, God sadly ascended and turned out our light.
Translated by Karen Alkalay-Gut