My sister is in a bomb shelter
And it rains over the Atlantic.
Our flight turned back to JFK,
We have tickets back to Atlanta,
And I wonder if they will still serve breakfast
Or if the omelets will go to waste
Like the linen shorts I bought and folded and packed
In stowage from ATL to JFK to TLV.
Something about being a Jew
Means I feel some things in my bones
Like that U-turn on the flight screen
And it is my birthright
Like how it is my sister’s birthright trip
To run to a bomb shelter
As it is raining over the Atlantic
And my mother asks how we will get her back.
I attempt to go to the restroom
And to brush my teeth,
But the complementary toothpaste has a seal
And I have nothing sharp to pierce it with
Except the back of the cap,
But I forget that’s how these work,
So I push until the paste comes out the back of the tube
And jumps onto my denim.
At least I smell minty-fresh
As I squeeze past the men with payas,
Careful not to brush against them
Because I cannot remember who is allowed to touch women
But I doubt it is the men who asked the teenage boy in the boarding line
If he had wrapped tefillin yet today,
Only for my mother to take a picture of him praying
And for me to call her rude.
And I am a poet so I do not sleep,
But I turn to see the rising and falling of my father’s chest
And my mother texting her friend.
They go on long walks together like college girls
And learn to play Mahjong
Like good Southern Jews
When it is not raining over the Atlantic
And my sister is not in a bomb shelter.
I cannot tell if I am disappointed
That we will not make it over the Atlantic,
Or if I willed the airspace to close
Because I was scared of walking through the shuk
And I didn’t know what prayer to put in the Western Wall.
I know now,
But I will have to wait.
I may not see my sister before she turns twenty-one,
But I will see her
Because she is safe
Tucked away
And I am tucked under a Delta blanket
Because business class red eye is cold
And it rains over the Atlantic
While I use WhatsApp
To talk to my sister
About gummy bears and guys
And how to ignore the fact
That she is in a nation
In a national state of emergency
And I cannot hold her hand
Because I am over the Atlantic
And the omelets went to waste.
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