Age and years of work showed in Lazer’s hands
and the eyes and breasts of his second wife were young-
the paper roses in the window
told it all to the world.
The barn told no tales of wild nights of love.
a woman’s hot tears,
and a man’s teeth
grinding down on hatred in the darkness:
“When will you throw the old man out of your life!”
But Lazer rocked the truth to sleep like a scared child
when he saw an empty bed across the room:
“She works so little she can’t sleep at night.”
But one evening
when the winter gloom
weighed on houses and treetops,
he opened his heavy hands
as if he’d dropped forever
the five acres and the pretty house
he’d worked so hard to have,
and every word plowed furrows in a field of pain:
“I’m old, Dvoyre, I won’t live long,
at least don’t make me see this,
and I’m ashamed before my children, Dvoyre, I’m ashamed.”
And so a young woman’s twenty years
took up the yoke of hard days and lonely nights,
and the red paper roses smiling in the window
kept the secret
from the world.
(Rachel Korn)
More Poetry from Rachel Korn:
Rachel Korn Poems based on Topics: Night, World, Pain, Love, Youth, Life, Winter, Woman, Hatred, Secrets, Truth- Job (Rachel Korn Poems)
- The Housemaid (Rachel Korn Poems)
- Crazy Levi (Rachel Korn Poems)
- Generations (For My Daughter) (Rachel Korn Poems)
- Passover Eve (Rachel Korn Poems)
- Arthur Ziegelboim (Rachel Korn Poems)