I Didn’t Know It Was Possible to Lose the Language
Alma Katz
Translated from the Hebrew by Linda Zisquit
I dreamt of skin touching the sun
water dripping from the body
drying on the skin
imprinting textures
of dryness, of salt
I dreamt of a home you can move within
a contact I’m not suspicious of
I was never afraid
I wouldn’t have
what to eat or that
my parents wouldn’t
have what
to eat
I was afraid they would leave
me that they would lie
to me I was afraid of
the looks
I cried when I reached the water
I saw the sea
and it opened in me a silenced breather pipe
I haven’t breathed through it till now
Click HERE to read the Hebrew version of this work in Granta Hebrew
Alma Miryam Katz (1987) is a poet, anthropologist and editor, born in Tel Aviv. She is the co-editor of Granta magazine’s Hebrew online and print edition. Her book Pulse (2017) was published by Keshev publishing house for poetry. Her ethnographic research deals with WB Palestinian labor in Tel Aviv and Jaffa.
Linda Stern Zisquit has published five full-length collections of poetry, including Return from Elsewhere and Havoc: New & Selected Poems, as well as several volumes of translations from Hebrew poetry, including Wild Light: Selected Poems of Yona, for which she received an NEA Translation Grant and was shortlisted for the PEN Translation Award. For many years she was Poetry Coordinator for the MA in Creative Writing Program at Bar Ilan. She lives in Jerusalem, Israel.