A rabbi is but a gopher

who makes belief its tale rattles

selling tales & snake oil concocted

by dusty-eyed alchemists

before time was kept,

black & fringed like a widow

rocking back and forth

back and forth, spine bending

& extending over, and over,

chin folded to neck, to beard.

Maybe if he rocks hard enough,

wails with enough portent,

speaks softly enough

with salt shaker in hand,

you’ll believe you were Chosen

for something more

than forty years wandering,

wondering where the desert ends,

what an oasis is, what it smells like,

where the fuck your foreskin went.