God Hid His Face
Selected Poems of RAJZEL ZYCHLINSKY
 
My Mother and the Oven

What did my mother 
want from our oven? 
She moved it around
every autumn –
dragged the oven from wall to wall, 
from corner to corner, 
made it higher, 
lower –
the white oven stood 
pale and silent. 
The Gentile drank whisky 
from a flask 
and sang sad Slavic songs. 
The clay was shining on his big hands –
I was frightened by his shadow on the wall 
and by the white shadow of the oven.

Translated by Barnett Zumoff
 

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