And the Rat Laughed - By Nava Semel Page 0,31

not a she-animal

Because only a he-rat

Can get out and move on

And every she-rat

Is prey for the Stefan

Up There – Down There

Up there

Farmers

Further up

Birds

Furthest up

Parents

Down here

Jews

Further down

Children

Furthest down

Children

Of Jews

Mother – Father

Mother said be a good girl

And Father said nothing

Father Rat kept quiet

And Mother Rat said nothing

Too bad I wasn’t born to them

Far – Near

Jesus is distant

The Stefan is close

And Mother

I have to forget the most

The Other Way Around

What is better

A pit with a living child

Or a grave with a dead child?

Or maybe the other way around –

A pit with a dead child

Or a grave with a living child?

Easy

It’s easy

To get rid of a child who is small.

With a rat

It’s not so easy at all.

Body Parts

Mother

Has no eyes

Has no arms

Has no legs

Has no lips

Mother

Just has a back

The Stefan Has

no eyes Has no

arms Has no

legs Has no lips

The Stefan just has a tail

A Hug

The lice are free

To roam the place

From my hair

To my forehead

And all over my face

I lie there

And I feel them tug

On my face

On my body

For me that’s a hug

Mouth

I give you the name

First just Rat

Then My Pet

Then I give you one with panache

Like Stanislaw or Stash

Tell me yours, Little Girl

You implore.

The Stefan’s mouth

Calls me the Whore

Skin

A hole-child

Is running out of skin

Tail

I have a friend with a tail

And he has four legs

The Stefan also has a tail

It’s between his two legs

Head

When The Stefan climbs down

This is what I do:

I bang my head and hope

There’s a child on the other side

With a rat-pet too

Porridge

Mother pig

Cooked some porridge

And this little piggy had none

Food

Dear Rat,

Make sure you eat it all

To keep from being small

Might makes right

And a giant bite

You’ll swallow every crumb

For me you’ll have your fill

Eat straight out of my hand

And show me you can kill

Hide And Seek

Hide and seek

Just count to ten

No one will find me

Ever again

Catch

If I run away

He gets even more wild

That’s the game that we play

The Stefan, the child

Pretending

Let’s pretend

I’ll be the rat

And the little girl’s you

Cause I want to be

The scary one too

Isn't It Lucky

Isn’t it lucky the rat can bite for me

Isn’t it lucky he can scratch for me

He can pass on diseases

He can crawl around too

And do all the things that I can’t do

Colors

Green is what comes out of your mouth

Red is what comes out of your legs

Brown is what comes out from behind

Black is light

Cold – Warm

I’ll never be cold

For dirt is my blanket

I’ll always be warm

For I’m covered with blood

Dolly

I once had a dolly with braids

Who knew how to close her eyes

They cut off her braids

They gouged out her eyes

And now she’s a dolly that’s bald and blind

Looking for a girl of a different kind

Lullaby

Once upon a time

There was a little Jewish girl

And she had

Little Jewish hands

And little Jewish eyes

And a little Jewish mouth

And a little Jewish body

And a big hole

A Riddle

Where’s the little girl?

What little girl?

Was there ever a little girl?

Saint

When Stefan the Saint

Was as small as an elf

He was snatched from his bed

By Mister Satan himself

A horrible monster

Was what his parents found

Their sweet and cuddly baby

Disappeared in the ground

I want the first Stefan

To come and hunt down

Mister Satan who owns

The bed-pit in the ground

Cause if rats were creatures

That Saint Stefan adored

He’d have Heaven summon

A hundred saints or more

Silence

When the Stefan thrashes

Bashes

Slashes

The animal sounds

Come out of the ground

And I

Vomit in silence

A Ladder

Up

And down

And up

And down

See-saw

See-saw

Time

The Stefan comes down

The Stefan goes up

Yesterday is what came before

Tomorrow is what comes next

Down comes the Stefan

Up goes the Stefan

That’s how time marches on

Sun

Maybe the sun doesn’t go up

And the night doesn’t go down

Maybe beyond the pit

The world doesn’t go round

And darkness isn’t black

And the sun doesn’t set

And I’m the only one left

But I don’t know it yet

A Tree

At the tip of the root–

The one close to the sky–

There’s a bird made of sand

Up and up it will fly

And tell them everything

Rain

If anything grows there

It’s all thanks to me

Cause my body

Makes

Rain

Water

When you flow over me

Tell someone

That the little girl...

A Name

A little girl without a name

A place without a name

People without a name

Clean

Clean is when a rat licks me

Clean is when no lice hug me

Clean is when nothing comes out of me

And the cleanest I’ll be

Is when I cease to be

A Promise

I’ll pee

I’ll shit

I’ll die

I’ll give off a stench

That’s all I can promise

Afraid

I don’t know any more

If I’m afraid

Because if I stop being afraid

I’ll no longer be

Happy

The happiest day that lies ahead

Is the one when I find out

The Stefan’s dead

Steps

Three steps

Forward

Three steps

To the left

Three steps

Back

Three steps

To the right

That’s how you cross yourself

That’s how you’re blessed

Maybe if I do it

The pain will be less

1 Even if we don’t quite know