Thrush Poetry Journal
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Yehoshua November
​

Prayer
 
Over the years,
a man forgets
his wife’s
beauty,
finds himself
spellbound
by the face of another,
less beautiful,
woman. This is like one
to whom prayer
has become a habit.



​
Poem on Our Eighteenth Anniversary  
  
When you yelled, Call them out,   
delirious in a head scarf and hospital gown,  
the contraction monitor floating behind you.   
When you rowed away from the shore at Bear Mountain,   
our three daughters and two sons in the boat,  
and I stayed behind on a bench  
to grade Expos essays.    
When you withdrew your hand,  
pretending not to see mine reach across the patch of grass  
on the hill behind the dorms  
where we sat, on a Sabbath afternoon,  
two weeks into our first semester.  When we lounged 
on the student union’s plastic-upholstered couch 
after our first cafeteria shift 
and discussed our classes.  
When, a year later, in my college apartment,  
study lamp illuminating your lovely face,   
your hands slowly climbed  
my forearms.   
When I hugged you at the top of the stairwell 
before you took leave that first night
—​
familiar and strange  
in your ponytail and cream cardigan
—​ 
and we drifted to sleep  
in our respective apartments, twin buildings  
standing side by side  
in the Upstate autumn air. When I returned home,  
late at night, four years into our marriage,  
on an adjunct’s salary, no   
health insurance, to find you   
sitting on the floor,   
cleaning the drawer of the open fridge  
in preparation for Passover,  
your recently divorced brother asleep  
on the apartment couch
—​  
and you lifted your face,   
excited to see me.   
When, the year before we met,  
at a college on another continent, 
young men waited behind your morning door
with offerings of Danishes and chocolate milk.    
When you took a bus, a subway, and then a second bus  
to greet me at the gate, wearing red tights,  
the first time I visited you between semesters.  
When we kissed in Frick Park in the rain,   
the restricted area of Albany International Airport,   
in your pink childhood bedroom 
when I had the flu,  
in your college apartment after  
the schnitzel and wine.    
When you reached your hand out of our rowboat,   
nineteen years later,  
to pluck a waterlily    
from Shepherds Lake.
When you sent me the Five Books of Moses,  
via a friend, the week before our wedding,  
a note tucked inside the book of Genesis.   
When I awoke from surgery,   
and you sat at my bedside   
in turquoise blouse  
and black skirt.  When you tossed
a chocolate buttercup through the air  
and into my hands as you walked to the minivan 
to drive the girls to drawing lessons, 
your scarf—purple, aqua, maroon—lifted  
by the January wind. 
And today, when we sat on a bench   
beside the Hackensack River, 18 years  
into our marriage, sharing a bottle of lukewarm, lime seltzer   
you found in your purse,  
and you told me about a ride you hitched
in the back of a flower truck
with two friends 
your last summer in high school,
and I tried to picture that part of you
that would remain a stranger
leaning her lovely head
under swaying bouquets
of yellow tulips. 
​




​Yehoshua November is the author of two poetry collections, God’s Optimism (a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry) and Two Worlds Exist (a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize). His work has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, The Sun, Virginia Quarterly Review and on National Public Radio and On Being's Poetry Unbound podcast program. November teaches creative writing at Rutgers and Touro University.   




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