Posted on November 27, 2025 by Jenn Zatopek

HIS VOICE, THE FLOOD

Everyone is a closed door, I think,
and then the dream–

A woman picks up a rock to stone me
a tiny infraction, my need for sharing
last Friday evening the sabbath, and
the friend’s seething rage, but then–

I hear my grandfather’s voice, a Jewish man
who wore a tallit after kissing its edges
as he prayed in the cellar in Great Neck,
my grandmother’s harsh commands
to forget the old ways.

But it was in hiddenness he found God.
His voice I haven’t heard in thirty-four years
who said in the dream, Keep going.

I walk in cool rains between houses
fringed by the wet feathers of trees,
climbing stairs the color of honey,
his voice birdsong, chanting across time,
prayers during the Second World War–

Keep going, Jennifer, keep going,
the doors will open one day.

Image / New York City by Samantha Gilmore on Unsplash