fbpx

Poem: That Great Diaspora

A poem by Rachel Zucker
[additional-authors]
August 24, 2016

I’ll never leave New York & when I do
I too will be unbodied — what? you
imagine I might transmogrify? I’m from
nowhere which means here & so wade out
into the briny dream of elsewheres like
a released dybbyk but can’t stand
the soulessness now everyone who ever
made sense to me has died & everyone I love
grows from my body like limbs on a rootless tree

Rachel Zucker is the author of nine books, most recently, a memoir titled “MOTHERs,” and a double collection of prose and poetry, “The Pedestrians.” Her book “Museum of Accidents” was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Zucker teaches poetry at New York University.

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

Three Dates to Dataland

I took three different dates, ages 6, 72 and 35, to see Dataland, the unusual digital art experience in downtown Los Angeles.

Hakol Shalom, All Is Shalom

This is the transcript of the speech Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson gave at the 2026 AJU Gala on May 19, 2026.

A Slice of Aussie Heaven for the Jewish Day of Love

A classic Australian dessert chocolate coconut slice features a rich, dense, fudgy chocolate base packed with dried coconut, finished with a thick cocoa frosting and generously dusted with even more coconut.

The Empty Plaza and the Eternal Bond

This Tisha b’Av, as we mourn over the Temple once more, it is an occasion to consider what resonance the remnants of the Temple structure hold for us today.

Rosner’s Domain | A Leftist (Not) by Choice?

Coalition supporters want to define Eisenkot as a leftist because leftist is a title most Israelis do not want their Prime Minister to hold. But this definition has inherent limitations.

Life, Love and Tisha b’Av

As if life needed one more complication, my anniversary with life, my birthday, usually falls somewhere inside the Three Weeks, that narrow corridor of Jewish time when celebration starts to feel suspicious.

Echoes of Oct. 7 in ‘The Odyssey’

The film reminded me that an ancient poet could write about massacres but also about moral courage, while terrorists who dream of killing Jews can only think of going right to the massacre.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.