DRAUGHT by Natalya Cohen

She was sitting by the well
A musician nearby played an old Eagles song
It made her weep gently, bringing up floods from the past
The well was concrete, but flowers grew through the cracks
The water’s been dried up all spring
She was cold as an Arctic shell
Yet shes grown not to worry
Her roots dwell in the shadows where the sun once roamed
She will wait for the rain
To wash away her tears and to fill her heart that drowns in doubt When her lips open to the wind, they whisper sweet murmurs to the rolling hills
The leeward court wonders why her eyes scream into the sun and replies, “Eshet Hashamayim, you’ve filled hands with milk and coated lips in honey, you’ve galloped thousands of miles, and your brown eyes carry the dark earth which balances between your smiling cheeks.

Natalya Sara Cohen studied Creative Writing and Screenwriting at Brooklyn College in New York. Originally from South Africa, Cohen grew up with a French father who traveled, while her mother and four uncles of Sephardic (Turkish, Belgian, and Italian descent) raised her to love chocolate, bourekas, and focaccia. Raised by the ocean in Miami, she has always felt a sense of belonging on the water. Like a traditional diasporic or nomadic Jewess, she chose a career in yachting, so that she could travel extensively.