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(Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner)
Yesterday I saw the Prophet Jonah
emerge from behind the filthy garage
near the stadium, in the Jaffa mud:
I stood peeing on the wide scorched
leaves of a castor-oil plant; all around me lay
a once-pure dune defeated by the effluent
of burnt oil, and foul fumes masked
the gleam of water. A tremor went through me
as I shook myself dry; a tremor that came
to me straight from the sea, like the flash of
a fin, opposite the entrance to the port, under
the unwatchful eye of a darkened lighthouse,
and the Prophet Jonah, melting into the sand.
Elisha Porat, the 1996 winner of Israel's Prime Minister's Prize for Literature, has published nineteen volumes of fiction and poetry, in Hebrew, since 1973. His works have appeared in translation in Israel, the United States, Canada, and England. The English translation of his short story collection, The Messiah of LaGuardia, was released in 1997. His latest collection of Hebrew poetry, The Dinosaurs of the Language, was published in Israel. His latest book in English, Payback, stories, was published by Wind River Press.
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