Rowena Silver, a native of Winnipeg, Canada, now living in Riverside, California, is an editor of Epicenter literary Magazine. 
Her work has been widely published in such journals as: Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal, European Judaism, Writer's Digest, Ariga, Standards: 
University of Colorado, Pudding House Publications, Guardian Unlimited, Heyday Books  The San Fernando Journal, and Dissident  Editions.   
 


 

Gaza Springtime

Like Abraham offering up his son,
just so does fecund cactus bloom
beneath a bloody, orange sun.
As death in life continues on, 
our acquiescence softly looms, 
like Abraham offering up his son.
We see the fecund cactus sun
herself, on barbed and shaky loom, 
her tender tendrils vision spun.
She thrusts out her scarlet tongue
in passive trust, the risk assumed, 
beneath a bloody, orange sun.
When will the sacrifice be done, 
swords be lowered, flora bloom, 
where Abraham offered up his son?
We forfeit life as its begun
just so, does fecund cactus bloom:
like Abraham offering up his son,
beneath a bloody, orange sun.




Shelechet

Shelechet: the falling of leaves.
A crisp ascription 
In a land where no thunderous wind
bundles seasons 
into parcels of Technicolor

Shelechet: the falling of leaves.
the soft falling 
of children, hushed  
beneath a resolute sun.

Shelechet: the falling of leaves.
In a swerve of centuries 
without a rustle of autumn. 
ancient languages fatten,
feed off old fears



Waiting by the Curb 

This is the click of a shoe in an empty hallway; a hologram 
hope, battered by  time and acrid fumes of  memory 

This is mirage; a remnant of gardens built in separate deserts. 
We have sought out and destroyed each other's secret places. After long 
journeys, we have returned to the same dark season of banter and ruse
     
I planted those yellow roses in the full knowledge that things fade.
Desire always seems promise enough.  But this is not what
could be, or even enough of what was.

This is something painted on the side of an ice cream truck,
 a  Dreamsicle  - luscious looking -  but never in stock.