Us and Them

By Nomi Stone Nomi Stone

“I would make love to one of our

whores before I

would fuck one of their

bourgeoisie.” There was a proverb,

like this: Don’t trust a if

he becomes a even though

he remains a for

forty years. And the sister opposite

proverb: Don’t trust a even

though he has been in the grave

for forty years. It was a difficult day,

a bomb had spun open

a bus, and children

had been crushed down by

a machine. Each wondered if he was born

too soon, if later would have been better, if 40

+ 40 + 40 + 40

Source: Stranger’s Notebook (TriQuarterly Books, 2008)

Biography

Nomi Stone's first book of poems, Stranger’s Notebook (TriQuarterly Books, 2008) chronicles her time living in one of the last cohesive Jewish communities in North Africa. She has a Masters in Middle Eastern Studies from Oxford University, and was Fulbright Scholar in Creative Writing in Tunisia. Stone is currently a PhD candidate in Cultural Anthropology at Columbia University. She has received poetry fellowships and grants . . .

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