Zeek: Hyatt Regency Dead Sea Resort

Hyatt Regency Dead Sea Resort
Rowena Silver

Weary of Encino,
enervated wives
mob the Eye of the Needle
in holy pilgrimage

At the Dead Sea's turquoise waters
near Masada and the caves
they rise in somber yearning
as summoned by brochure

to mummify each other
with ancestral mud
scrub pores clean with sponges
soaked in sweat of matriarchs

Dead skin exfoliated
sliced cucumbers on eyes
each orders up a magnum
of Golan Heights champagne

the sun retreats - embarrassed
behind Judian Hills
the sea, reflecting umber,
now darkens into time

Sleep comes, and with it dreaming
of rising in new skin
to writhe like snakes discarding
the lines that they have earned

the Sea is almost silent
but for Bathsheba's wail
a choked and mocking laughter
that ripples into wave

Rowena Silver is an editor of Epicenter magazine and has been published in such publications as Bridges: A Journal for Jewish Feminists, European Judaism, Writer's Digest, and The Pacific Review.

Image: Chaia Weller

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