POEM: ‘Prague by Night’
Patchouli oil and the scent of your travel hair,
our smaller days middle-aged and measured
by hotel soaps that come in gold foil
wrappers like they’re something special.
You say one European city is like another.
Scientists say somewhere in space
exist colors we’ve never seen.
When we make love in the hotel room
in Prague, I close my eyes
and try to think about you instead of
those colors and if we’ll see them
like some kind of reward when we die.
Yesterday we went to Kafka’s house.
He died of starvation in a hospital before
intravenous feeding was invented,
not in a concentration camp or ghetto
like his sisters Ottla, Elli, and Valli.
At the breakfast buffet today
I took extra bread and cheese
to make sandwiches for lunch.
I wasn’t hungry and slipping
them in a plastic bag felt like stealing.
I surprised myself with petty satisfaction.
I thought about Kafka and his sisters
as we ate the sandwiches sitting on the steps
of St. Giles Church. Inside, baroque gold angels
bored with God, cavort half-nude in gilded heavens
where they hoard their gold and ignore us.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
