the kibbutz movement fell
in the ‘90s
my mother
a progeny of the fence playgrounds and
stained glass dining halls
danced in the fields
of shattered glass —-
later poppies
on the hills
of red white and blue —-
before the sinkholes by the
ים המלח
dead sea
collapsed
the great mouth of
the bleeding galil
the parachute
a boot
water fought with
children
i visited a kibbutz
two summers ago
heard my name spoken in the
song of my ancestors
poetry of melancholia
and saw the
cinders
of laughter
still there ——
gunshots playing
softly
in the background
Noa Padawer-Blatt is a rising junior from Toronto, Ontario. Formerly, she was a staff writer and editor of INKspire, an online literary platform; she is currently the lead editor. Additionally, she attended the launch program of the Kenyon Young Science Writers Workshop, as well as the School of the New York Times for Cultural and Creative Writing. Her poems search to divulge both her heritage and modern issues, and the moments where the two collide.