Two salamanders are crossing the North
Border Road. Sluggish and indifferent, they
Creep under the borderline barbed wire. I stop
The patrol. Above the ravines and fields,
Silence suddenly drops for a moment: we watch
Their orange backs, a poison color, their tails
Striped black, and their evil aura darkens
The morning light. I feel the danger,
And give an order, but even helmets and
Bullet-proof vests can’t help when your terrain
abruptly explodes: in the orange glow
I can see the creatures: evasive, lazy, innocent,
As if they don’t carry on their backs
Marks of fear and mortal hints.
translated from Hebrew by
the author and poet Ward Kelley
About the AuthorElisha Porat is a Hebrew-Israeli poet and writer. Many of his works have been translated into the English. This is his fourth poem in the poetry pages of Pif Magazine. This poem is taken from a poema, a group of a dozen lament–memory poems, which were translated from Hebrew into English by the author and the American poet Ward Kelley.
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