for Naï's prompt recovery
The morning behind the blinds only feels mild;
I lie in my bed and write about the sea
we battled with twice a day, under the red flag,
at the line where the city can’t go further west,
where waves have their last word and last fun.
We jumped up as they came for us, or
let them roll us in, like laundry in a drum
till we won, resumed, jumped again, then returned
to the cooling sand under white umbrellas:
front, back, front…
and back to charge at the waves -
four days dragged out of the bustling August heat
that spreads behind the blinds which now
I must raise.
(Jerusalem, August 18, 2012)