cambridge book review

Mall Rats and Their Grandmothers

Elli Hazit

The beggar held out his hand
And I looked the other way

* * *

She
cannot read or write
Settles back
under her cloak of
fundamentalisms

The Philosopher
said there is no coherent self
but there is beauty
and a perversion

His own Sister
made up lies rewrote him
I imagine her with long hair
bangs cut straight across her forehead

After six thousand years
the tools get lost
Art tinkered to death

And no one loves
the Long-legged Boys
who talk too loud
Bred from moments of booze-soaked joie de vivre
boredom, or just vague curiosity

They loom
Hunters without lances
in an overheated dugout
circus tent
of choices elaborately displayed

She
makes meals to set before the
Men
leaving herself safely in their hands and

She
wears no shoes
except to go out in the daytime
covered to her ankles

The image of the law

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____________________

Elli Hazit was born in San Francisco in 1960. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her master’s degree from Boston University. Hazit lived in Paris, France from 1983 to 1997. Her writing has been published in the International Herald Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Cambridge News. She has also produced radio programs for WORT-FM, Madison. One of her stories, “The Tangerines and the Dogs,” was broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service Programme.

June 15, 2011 - Posted by cambridge book review | poetry | Eleven Poems: An Audio Chapbook, Elli Hazit, Mall Rats and Their Grandmothers