House of Clouds
Clouds float over Giudecca Island,
Over a renovated factory, marked Hotel Stucky.
In the house of clouds
Voices of children torn from their mothers.
One cries, Go West to catch the sun!
East by the isthmus it grows darker.
Go find the almond tree
That grows in the Ghetto,
By the café without walls.
There you’ll find see my shadow.
I am Isaac
The boy with the torn knee.
Tintoretto saw me
Squatting on a stone
A knife
Above my neck bone.
Once I danced
In fields of red anemone
At the foot of Mount Moriah.
Remember me.
Song
Isaac, you are falling —
I am too.
Neither cotton
Nor silk
To cover the hole,
A ram’s horn
Jutting
Through blue.
Who lives there?
We thought God knew.
With short steps
I have made
A long journey
To elsewhere,
Isaac.
