We Never Buried Her

The rabbi told me, I drop everything for a funeral.
It must be within 24 hours.
No one forgives a rabbi who doesn’t show up for a funeral.

For the family,
Saying kaddish after the burial,
For seven days,
Or thirty days,
On each yahrtzeit,
It’s the most you can do for a person.
A kindness she can never repay.
A kindness you do expecting nothing.

But we didn’t bury her.
And a funeral,
We didn’t do that, either.
She is on my aunt’s mantel.
In some kind of vessel.
In ashes.

In nine years I have often forgotten her yahrtzeit,
So I make sure to say kaddish for her
On our birthday.

Unburied

We didn’t bury her.
And a funeral,
We didn’t do that, either.
She is on the mantel,
In some kind of vessel.

In nine years I have often forgotten her yahrtzeit,
So I make sure to say kaddish for her
On our birthday.

When One Equals Thirteen

Thirteen at a table, a bad omen.
Last Suppers,
Betrayal.
The harbinger of good tidings,
The number of God
Aleph, chet, daled
When one equals thirteen.

The Day of the Dead

We never buried her.
I’m sure you’ve noticed by now;
the news does not tell the story of the living.
It is the stories of the dead,
and the not-yet died.
Human nature?
Or
just
nature?
A rabbi once told me, you drop everything for a funeral.
Even a bris is less imminent.
Funeral within 24 hours of the death,
but a bris on the 8th day –
the day of miracles.
People don’t forgive a rabbi who doesn’t show up for the funeral.
Burying people, saying kaddish.
It is the most you can do for a person.
It is the kindness she can never repay,
the kindness you do expecting nothing.
But we didn’t bury her.
She is on my aunt’s mantel.
In ashes.

Good Times Bar, Jerusalem

gulps of biting juice and
i saw moss green

What is this
nervous
O.J. and vodka
You were thirsty

I am still thirsty and I just drank my lips numb
i actually meant thirsty
i spread my toes for balance

Well
Yeah

The guy didn’t rape me you know, he just tried
there must have been pictures of naked women or
maybe cowboys in outer space
on the wall behind my head
There are no actual marks on my body but
I think the police believe me

the glass door was all swagger and bravado
closed - open
open - closed - open
closed - open
closed

Where are they going
To find him and kick his ass
she sounded more IDF than bartender

they don’t know what he looks like
the counter was grey
the sky was blue
alone again and
I’m still thirsty

purple-brown eyes touched my face
the room-warm water slid down colorless
i walked myself home.

Tashlich

If I could get it written,
the pages would fly,
but now it’s getting early
and someone is coming.

I’m on my knees.
Not to pray.
I’m on my way up.

I was lying there in the dirt in the broken day,
wanting to hit the road.
Thinking of going places I’d never been
where nothing really belongs to me
but will.

It is still me behind the wheel,
driving myself out of the beds I made.
Never wanted shotgun.

Nothing but pavement ahead.
I’ll eat the highway.

I’ve come to touch you.
You planned the streets to make a crossroads for me.
Weighted to loan prayers and reasons,
I could almost hear the promises break.
Where do I go to see my own perspective.

Salt, dice, sacrificial fire.
It doesn’t matter in the end whether the eye is of God or man.
I can’t keep getting back what you keep taking away.

I’m not sure I really meant it.I was just playing some stupid game some stupid kids made up,
and you were just talking to yourself anyway.

Troubles fill my pockets.
My hands are empty.

I’ll never get it all down, there is too much to write.

Climbing under the barbed wire fence, by the river,
I toss what I have aside, and it swallows you whole.

it’s not about names

once I was still more flame than ember
laying here
not watching
whisper breath
almost still air
all glow
and shadow
music of memory in an ice storm
fingers of thoughts
like sheets washed to softness
skin water-warm
behind my view
a cloud full of rain
a canyon of darkness
a star of skies.

Mikvah

The blooming water,
champagne of the desert,
reaches up.
Melting fingers caress sighing sole,
smooth heel and calf,
surround knee,
embrace thigh,
reach and welcome
into concealment
pelvis, abdomen, ribcage,
breasts, sternum, arms, throat,
shoulders, neck, hands.
Hair floating,
she guides the head back to rest in her.
Face upturned
seeing the watery sky
through lidded eyes.
Surfacing to
expand
filling with breath.
Eternal quest for the mystical union
of divine and soul.