Amit Majmudar
What milk      what honey you were promised gall       in Zion
Kiss the weeping wall’s cheek       love       sows salt in Zion
 
It’s the recurring dream       of all       who throw down roots here
You’re holding a shovel       amid a thousand       falling Zions
 
When you finish digging       kneel in the red dust
God’s lost name       graffities the walls       in Zion
 
By the rivers of Babylon       we sat and wept
Today we stand up tall       and bawl and bawl in Zion
 
Will you beckon us to prayer       or to arms
When you’re granted your one phone call       in Zion
 
You shouldn’t need a map       to show you where to build
Look for the confluence       of three fault lines       Zion
 
Absolute truth       switches       two blocks west of this apartment
More than one thing is true       more than one thing false       in Zion
 
Amit means Limitless in Sanskrit       and in Hebrew       Friend
You will find a home yet       if not here       then inshallah       Zion
Amit Majmudar is a diagnostic nuclear radiologist whose poetry and prose have appeared in The New Yorker, The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-2012 and several other venues. His second poetry collection, Heaven and Earth, was selected by A. E. Stallings for the 2011 Donald Justice Prize.

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