EAST SIDE MOVING PICTURE THEATRE--SUNDAY

by: Maxwell Bodenheim (1892-1954)

N old woman rubs her eyes

As though she were stroking children back to life.

A slender Jewish boy whose forehead

Is tall, and like a wind-marked wall,

Restlessly waits while leaping prayers

Clash their light-cymbals within his eyes.

And a little hunchbacked girl

Straightens her back with a slow-pulling smile.

(I am afraid to look at her again.)

 

Then the blurred, tawdry pictures rush across the scene,

And I hear a swishing intake of breath,

As though some band of shy rigid spirits

Were standing before their last heaven.

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• Poems by Maxwell Bodenheim - More than 100 poems by Bodenheim.
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