Rachel Kaufman
Rachel Kaufman is a poet, teacher, and PhD candidate in Latin American and Jewish history at UCLA. Her work explores diasporic memory, transmission, and violence and argues for the power of poetry as historical method. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming on poets.org and in The Georgia Review, Harvard Review, AGNI, Los Angeles Review of Books, Rethinking History, Colonial Latin American Review, and elsewhere. The author of poetry collection, Many to Remember (2021), she was a 2023 Helene Wurlitzer poet-in-residence, a 2025 Willapa Bay AiR poet-in-residence, and a Fulbright-Hays Scholar.
Rachel Kaufman is a poet, teacher, and PhD candidate in Latin American and Jewish history at UCLA. Her work explores diasporic memory, transmission, and violence and argues for the power of poetry as historical method. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming on poets.org and in The Georgia Review, Harvard Review, AGNI, Los Angeles Review of Books, Rethinking History, Colonial Latin American Review, and elsewhere. The author of poetry collection, Many to Remember (2021), she was a 2023 Helene Wurlitzer poet-in-residence, a 2025 Willapa Bay AiR poet-in-residence, and a Fulbright-Hays Scholar.
Witchcraft
It is better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting, since that is the end of all [wo]men, and the living will take it to heart. (Ecclesiastes 7:2, Ketubot 72a)
Was it a house of feast or a house of mourning?
The women keep baby clothes in the dressers,
in the refrigerator, in the garden. They know
the language of birds.
The women stir the pot with witchcraft
and share all secret matters in the bathroom.
Did the rabbis think they could unspool us
without listening? Our ears pressed to each other
and still we do not hear. The raven is deemed
untrustworthy, but the dove is a symbol
and thus honest. The women touched
the boiling pot with bare hands
and thus were righteous. The women touched
each other with bare hands and thus
were righteous. I rewrite beginnings
but keep their ends. The women bend
their backs towards river, a river
appears, a ferry to cross.
Wash out the blood from your sheets
in their sounds. The women
wore blue and yellow flowers but
[don’t worry] did no magic. The midwives
tied their hands behind their backs.
The women leave traces of ink in the river
for me to touch. I gesture them
with my eyes closed—magic,
no magic, my hand over my hand,
they touch me with my eyes closed.
(originally published in Small Orange Journal)
It is better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting, since that is the end of all [wo]men, and the living will take it to heart. (Ecclesiastes 7:2, Ketubot 72a)
Was it a house of feast or a house of mourning?
The women keep baby clothes in the dressers,
in the refrigerator, in the garden. They know
the language of birds.
The women stir the pot with witchcraft
and share all secret matters in the bathroom.
Did the rabbis think they could unspool us
without listening? Our ears pressed to each other
and still we do not hear. The raven is deemed
untrustworthy, but the dove is a symbol
and thus honest. The women touched
the boiling pot with bare hands
and thus were righteous. The women touched
each other with bare hands and thus
were righteous. I rewrite beginnings
but keep their ends. The women bend
their backs towards river, a river
appears, a ferry to cross.
Wash out the blood from your sheets
in their sounds. The women
wore blue and yellow flowers but
[don’t worry] did no magic. The midwives
tied their hands behind their backs.
The women leave traces of ink in the river
for me to touch. I gesture them
with my eyes closed—magic,
no magic, my hand over my hand,
they touch me with my eyes closed.
(originally published in Small Orange Journal)
© 2026 Rachel Kaufman
Rachel Kaufman was a Featured Poet at the February 2026 Second Sunday Poetry Series
Rachel Kaufman was a Featured Poet at the February 2026 Second Sunday Poetry Series