Sarah Zale

As a child, I brought home
what my father called strays
or other. My mother would sigh,
but even she thought red had no place
within the pale of our décor.
Only potatoes and parsnips were
vegetables. The only spice was salt.

The face of John F. Kennedy on my wall.
Chaim Potok on my shelves. A scapular
hung from my neck. In a former life,
I was a Jew.

On my door I hung: Do not enter
this doorway. When my parents
were away, I stood half in my room,
half out. I felt light, I took deep breaths.
I talked—to no one in particular. I
danced in red socks.

—Sarah Zale
from The Art of Folding

I remember the first war.
Before flint and metal and pictograph stone.
I see a woman in 2700 B.C. I notice it is me.
I am in the Middle East, my head bowed,
a clay pot and reed in hand. I am about
to write a word. One word. I see a mouth open.
It is mine. War!

For 5000 years, and how many more?—
a cry I cannot hold, the drop of my jaw,
the feel of a sound, a fistful of pebbles. 

—Sarah Zale
from The Art of Folding

The leaves blink like brushed silver
in the flat light of Bil’in. It is late autumn.
The olives are ready. A chain weaves
in and around the trees. One end snakes
to where Asif waits. It slips from his fingers
as the groan of an engine caterpillars over the ridge.
He attaches an iron collar to the end of the chain,
snaps it around his neck. It locks. He rests
the back of his hand to the bark of a tree
like a man recalling his love. The roots
of twelve years are deep. What kind of a man—
even a Jew—can do this? he asks the tree,
asks no one. He sees it happen, the break of limb
and root as the machine rips it from the soil.
He straightens the scarf around his head,
his kaffiyeh, his pride. He leans into the tree,
rib to rib, and waits.

—Sarah Zale
from The Art of Folding

Pale, of Irish roots
and from America,
she tells the poet from Nazareth
she knows nothing of poetry.
He closes his eyes and recites:
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love.
Yeats, she says, smiling.

—Sarah Zale
from The Art of Folding