The following poem appears in our Fall/Winter 2018 issue. The single issue is available for purchase in print or digital format.
Anywhere you drop the needle on my heart’s record
it lands on absence, a song with longing for a hook
and a groove so irresistible I repeat it on every track:
husband who traveled for a living, divorce, new lover
in a country so far away he lived in tomorrow.
*
Even the longing is lovely—a line in an old poem
about a once-sparkled heart darkened by forgetting.
*
The chocolate ganache on the white plate I stare at,
salivating, is nine-times-out-of-ten more delicious
than the ganache I put in my mouth.
This is also true of most men.
*
Back when I used to sing jazz, my best numbers
were torch songs, the unrequited heart thrown
on the stage and left to bleed in the spotlight.
—
Marie-Elizabeth Mali is the author of Steady, My Gaze (Tebot Bach, 2011) and co-editor with Annie Finch of the anthology, Villanelles (Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 2012). Her work has appeared in Calyx, New Ohio Review, and Poet Lore, among others. She is also a coach and underwater photographer, and can be found online at www.memali.com.
This is a small representation of the high-quality writings you’ll find in every issue of TIFERET.
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