The Red Door: A dark fairy tale told in poems

The story starts at a Jewish funeral.

fist after fist fills with cool damp earth

It travels to Israel:

at ben-gurion airport
here she comes hauling her baggage
rendered clumsy by her burden
beneath that smooth brown skin
that halo of thick coarse hair
the plantation and the shtetl
live in blood and memory

her passport names her
tirzah persephone horowitz
after an aunt on her dad’s side
who died so young in the camps
and her mother’s favorite greek myth
but to call her tirzah is too much
like uncovering...