Rachel Barenblat

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Grandparents' House

Your hands slap the marble floor.
Your voice fills the empty spaces
in this house I never grew up in.

You tug your sun hat off your head
and squint at the vast Texas sky.
Your hands slap the marble floor.

Clutching bits of flour tortilla
you beam, face smeary and bright.
Your voice fills the empty spaces.

Bang on the windows, little boy:
your reflection is everywhere you look
in this house I never grew up in.

Rachel Barenblat holds an MFA from Bennington and rabbinic ordination from ALEPH: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal. She is author of 70 faces (Phoenicia, 2011), a book of poems written in conversation with Torah, as well as four poetry chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies. Since 2003 she has blogged as the Velveteen Rabbi; she serves a small congregation in western Massachusetts.