A Chat by Joanne Jackson Yelenik

Hello there Aryeh, I do want to hear your questions—the practical, about Michaeli, your day, the learning, Shabbat, what to do now, next, later, when. And more than that, our laughter, my telling of the applause at the poetry reading, your designing on the computer, the focus group reactions to my novel, your voice, how hot the days, how cool the nights, this book I’m reading, the ones you’re skimming; it’s been forever, the days just fly but often, from moment to moment, I find you, there, in your room, or another, on one of the sofas you love, in the garden, often the car, although now it’s a new one, with less of your imprint. Still you can appear from out of a slant of light, within a refreshing breeze of your cologne or the fragrance of a lemon tree, along the sound waves of planes in the sky, just in the air I breathe, that in another minute or one past, you breathed, or will, tomorrow, or just now, as you are reading or not, this email.

Joanne Jackson Yelenik’s poems and stories have appeared in anthologies, magazines and journals. She moved to Israel from the Washington, D. C. area in August, 2006. She teaches in the fields of history and literature. Her debut novel, Eucalyptus Leaves: A Deliciously Asymmetrical Friendship in Israel, will be launched in the fall; she is currently working on a collection of poems: Love Song of an Older Woman.