Poem: How to Sail

Scrape the curse off the parchment. Stir the broken letters
into a jar of water. Make a woman drink it: thus said
Elohim. But why: thus said Molly, twelve years old. Now I
was the teacher. We sat there, two black flames in a room
of white fire. We were sailing on a wind that passed
through the open window of a room next to the
marketplace, two thousand years ago

“How to Sail” first appeared in “Divinity School,” published by The American Poetry Review, 2015.

Alicia Jo Rabins is a poet, musician, performer and Torah teacher based in Portland, Ore. Her book “Divinity School” won the 2015 APR/Honickman First Book Prize.