1.

God is gone boating,

the radio says.

He did not come 

to this decision easily—

the journey, an edict: the 

image must sustain itself.

Who then owns these

faces reflected in the water?

2.

Ten letters swim in my stomach.

If only heaven made house calls,

maybe I could be sick.

Return the favor. Broadcast a

joyful noise, expel

every wet and blessed word,

know what shape the mouth takes, its

emptied and rawest form.

3.

There is no there, there.

My shirt and pants wait on the chair,

watch and cigarettes on the dresser,

glasses on

the bedside table,

all exactly where I left them.

But despite the careful notes I took,

I cannot find myself.

My room forgets me as it drowns in hair.

4.

To recognize the holy requires

knowledge of a miracle: the inability

to evacuate our humanity.

The image of God alone, fluttering

like a great sail, billowing

in a wind that is breath of our breath.

The divine achieves escape velocity. 

Yet the clay calls, even from the bottom

of the ocean—waving hello, farewell?

5.

I couldn’t dance with them. The Hassidim

my father joined so effortlessly, caught up

in a Bar Mitzvah celebration. I stood

with my arms crossed, leaning against

a security fence, counting automatic

weapons I’d never before seen in my life.

My father, rhapsodic; the Wall, mortared

in prayer. I was thirteen

myself and wholly underwater, unprepared.

Baruch et Adonia ha-mevorach, something

something. Who knew. Now, thirty-three yrs on

who cares? I can’t even find the verse on a calendar.

I remember I was sweating, and took my yad-

hand away from the text, forgetting my

lines.

The passage took whole minutes to find. The melody

lost in my throat, treading in place.

6.

He, that is, God

seemed to miss

the point

of the complaint.

Yadda Yahweh,

this and that.

Where were you

when I framed

leviathan’s tail,

the tyger’s symmetry, 

or whatever?

Hinenni, genius—

wherever you go,

there you are.

Oh, my sin, come

shield me from

His bloody whirlwind,

this overflowing grief.

Make me faithful.

But not yet, Lord, not yet.