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The Golem Envisions his Origins

3- An Arsonist Spreads Fear through the Ghetto 

Sabbath candles must have caught
a curtain, because the house, one
cat, most of the furniture, and all
the manuscripts, the rebbe’s 
lifework, went up.

Where the river curves along
the wharves, a warehouse of Bulgarian
wine and rosewater was torched. Tramps
battled the flames for casks and the humid
smell of roses saturated the quay for a week.

Did you hear? They lost
everything, the fishwives whisper.
She pawned her jewelry and they fled
to Nurnburg in the night. She has people
there, but you can imagine what it’s like…

Another arson, oh God, this time
a Gentile on the other side
of the Vltava. The guard has been called
out, there’s violent talk coming
from the taverns in Vinohrady. They say

it’s a Jew that is doing this,
huge and skinless, a wizard
of incineration. Though how can they say
it is a Jew when he is silent
bareheaded and beardless, unburnable?

As if they haven’t watched
us burn before their very eyes!
Fires don’t start themselves and someone
is to blame but it cannot be
one of us.

con't.

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