Carol Dorf
Peligrosa
Only at night could my Golem rise from the old futon and leave the basement. Once my Golem paused by the river – No Access – Peligrosa. A guard dog paced behind the gate.
I should have prepared more notes for the Golem, said the Sofer.
The Golem can’t decide on pronouns. For a while I pretended to understand, offered more clay and slip to allow for adjustments.
Dreams interrupted by bombs and prisoners – John Woo and his brief to justify waterboarding. It is no wonder the Golem paced through the night crashing into the old statues, warriors that fill the plaza.
On the fourth night a prisoner invented an ally much like the Golem with an additional ammunition belt. Constellations would have filled the sky but floodlights erased all but the crescent moon.
Sometimes my Golem would ask for paper and pencil. The words they wrote were incomprehensible – stick figures in the margin walked through what could have been a moon.
Once my Golem tried to eat, tearing plums off the tree and swallowing them whole. No one commented on the distended belly. Upon encountering the Golem or the prisoner, the witnesses' eyes couldn't blink quickly enough.
After the war, before the Golem lost the word beneath its tongue, the prisoner asked, Tell me the truth – did you know what was happening there? On that night the moon was full, showing not just the outlines of trees but the patterns of their leaves.
“This afternoon a group of woodpeckers tapped on the plum trees, which are on their way to full-leaves. The quince displays pink blossoms. A man rides by on a bike, blows his nose into his hand. A butterfly glides past the bushes. Someone says, “I love you.” I don’t see her or hear the other end of the conversation. What took me into the back yard was hearing a helicopter overhead.
In my post-modernist grad school days, I would have reminded you, that most likely this is a constructed scene. Then I would have gone on to point out that the 60s and 70s confessional poets were creating their own pasts. Now, after years of watching a president, who as of this January 19, 2020 had made 16,241 false or misleading claims (The Washington Post) my perspective is changing.
There’s a quote we’ve heard a number of times in the last few years “Every man has the right to an opinion but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts. Nor, above all, to persist in errors as to facts.” (first attributed to Bernard Baruch, 1946) As this administration continues to bluster and lie in a time of a life-threatening pandemic, I think “liar, liar, pants on fire.”
More than that, I want to air-hug the truth. I want to return to a world where we have agreed upon facts, and where the crazy uncle’s opinions return to their dystopic realm.”