The story starts at a Jewish funeral.
fist after fist fills with cool damp earth
It travels to Israel:
at ben-gurion airport
here she comes hauling her baggage
rendered clumsy by her burden
beneath that smooth brown skin
that halo of thick coarse hair
the plantation and the shtetl
live in blood and memory
her passport names her
tirzah persephone horowitz
after an aunt on her dadâs side
who died so young in the camps
and her motherâs favorite greek myth
but to call her tirzah is too much
like uncovering her nakedness
like speaking aloud the holy name
and the holy city of TzfatâŚ
i am a city of song
plucked strings of a lyre
loud brassy klezmer
throbbing techno beats
shoes clop-clopping on cobblestone
tires screeching on the asphalt river
winding round my peak
It features monstersâŚ
terry loves monsters
loved them since her first pimples and pubes
sneaking dracula under the covers
wondering what it would be like
to feel a vampireâs fangs on her neck
to taste human blood in her mouth
to transform into wolf or bat or mist
but dracula always dies
staked and beheaded by good christian men
because magic and mystery must not survive
And it endsâŚ
No. That would be telling.