(For Rabbi Walter Boninger of Butler, PA., who used to take a small Torah
from his synagogue to a rural asylum, ministering to Jews committed there.)

Here in this hospital, placid as acid, forgotten children with wrinkles
lived, or simply stayed. The main stairwell, banisters wide as seawalls,
set sail from floor to floor, yet never tacked beyond the bricks. Deep in
these hollows and hills, few would ever leave.

There the rabbi came. Ushered up the stairwell to a sunlit room, he’d
draw a scroll from a dark duffle bag – small, swaddled in velvet gray,
Hebrew letters dripping honey tears – and happily await his worshippers,
fewer and fewer year after year, to appear.

They did appear, as he knew they would. Gathering as one in suits
and jeans, smiling, mumbling – one touching a friends’ forehead to his –
they’d reach and reach for the baby Torah. The rabbi, dancing it from
soul to soul, bidding all to touch the child’s cheek:

“TO-rah Torah Torah, TO-rah Torah Torah,” he would sing, as fingers kissed
the faded velvet, shooing away hints of who they were. It was a little less than
praying, though one old woman clutched her picture book, muttering “Moses,”
rapt in recognition, as if a hidden hope within her head at last had something to say.     

Poetry is scattered messily across my bedroom floor. A page I stepped on with a wet foot clings to the ball of my heel before gently peeling away and falling back to the carpet.

Poetry is taped in short verses on the wall from packets and papers I didn’t want to throw away with the rest of my old school documents.

Poetry is the observant person in the bookstore who is just as nosy as I am, briefly locking eyes with me as if to ask, “Are you seeing this too?”

Poetry is the amount of oversharing I do before regretting it monumentally later on.

Poetry is running around my house in my senior prom dress home alone because it makes me feel like the belle of my one woman ball.

Poetry is the FOMO I experience from my side of the river, helpless without a car of my own.

Poetry is watching Elon Musk and Donald Trump tragically break up during pride month, holding my invisible bag of popcorn as it gets messier every hour.

Poetry is re-watching Wicked at midnight and catching new details to analyze them alongside the second trailer, and also realizing that Elphaba and Glinda are totally lovers no matter what the plot says.

The Republican governor of Indiana
reconsiders the death penalty. 

“There are legislators that wonder
if it’s still relevant. I’m going to listen
to them, the courts, the broader
discussion in general.”

Is he motivated by his belief
that all humans, pre- and post-born
have the right to live?

Does he fear that the justice system
could make a fatal incurable mistake?

No. 

It’s just that the drugs they use
to kill people have become
too expensive 

I liked when we forgot about the inherited social notions

how we dipped our toes in puddles after the rain like they were potions

jaunting down South Ashland Avenue while the ukulele played out in the open

I liked how you didn’t have fragments of attention and your thoughts were well chosen; I choke over the sentimental feelings of those emotions

We know what we owe you
but we can never pay you back
We can only spend our lives in humility
forever awed by your sacrifice
and miss you

A teenager, lost inside last year’s hoodie, crayon in hand, draws home.

A warm shower 
at the wrong hour 
feels like a vacation 

It feels like a fancy hotel
while the candles melt 
establishing a slight sensation

Close your eyes
as the steam will rise 
and you’ll drop all your reservations 

To feel you’re fresh
is to feel your best
like a mental lavation 

I go to these things to socialize
That’s why I arrived late and left early
That’s why I stood outside the whole time

Thats why I wasn’t paying attention to who was talking
That’s why it took a full 40 seconds to place you
That’s why I chuckled to myself
when you said some things in earnest

That’s why I muttered
and slurred my words nearly imperceptably
And I broke that glass when it fell from my hand
I wasn’t on a substance,

I guess I was tired
Digesting the huge meal
Or all the solar storms

That’s why I built the fire
cause magnetic fields are wreaking havoc
in my brain

Its full of swirling liquid
My body, going in four directions
(I forgot to drink water)

And I put way too much on my plate.

Ah, but it is normal.
I’m what they may call a weirdo
These storms
have raged since before I was born.