All of us born in ‘49
they called “the crop of independence.” Before
the cocks crowed, we’d bounce through the orchards
on our tractors snapping plums
from low branches: Roasting

like seeds on a pan we sowed
the desert with potatoes twelve
hours a day, six
days a week, sucking plum pits
to keep the spit in our mouths.

At Suez smoking cartons we drilled
till the others dropped stood night duty
carried stretchers till one shoulder bled,
then switched shoulders: Ariay, my name,
means lion. At Suez—Egypt sowed the desert

with my friends. Avi, playing chess
in our bunker under a lantern, checked me
laughed and leaned across the board
to slap my arm: Something
stabbed past my head through his cheek

and punched the back of his head to the floor.
When I lifted him, a ripped sack
sagged from my hands—Avi.
Shlomo. Asef. Ereviv.
And do you want to know why

I’m left to name them? I shifted my chair
a centimeter right. Now
when something happens—I care
but I don’t care. I can walk. I can smell the dust
the trees. I can hand you

this plum. I can feel you breathe.

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