s.

i wasn’t expecting you to answer

when i knocked on your door.

but you do, and you smile at me,

and you shake my hand.

the skin of your hands, once-lover,

eczema-red and rough, are just as i remember.

but you speak nothing of the past.

i accept a cigarette, and you would walk with me.

after all these years, though, i still think of you.

i remember, once-lover, how you held me;

the roughness of your hands on my cheek and ribcage.

how you bought me flowers. i kept all of them.

once you would hold my neck and kiss me

like there was nothing else you could think of.

i held you deep inside me, anxious, vulnerable;

you kissed me with my taste rich on your tongue.

but that love is gone, and no longer

do i hold onto anything of yours.

i shall let you go, once-lover,

and bid you farewell with a handshake.

seeker

for the sake of unity of the Holy One, blessed be He, with His Shechina.

were we always a monolatrous people? were we forever faithful?

for surely, the children of judah remember their altars,

and the trees sacred unto asherah, as jeremiah lamented. [1]

king josiah tore down the houses of the kedeishim, burned the asherah,

and cleansed jerusalem's holy temple of baʿal-worship. [2]

today what is left of the priestesses? where are the kedeishim?

their names have all been erased, and their devotees are no more. [3]

today we may imagine asherah's batim as tefillin of avoda-zaros woven [4]

outside the bedrooms of the polyamorous neopagan kedeishos of ʿishtar.

but these are not the baʿalim or asherim of our ancestors.

the avoda zara of yesteryear is now forever lost to us.

the zohar reveals that the hei in hashem's name is called asherah [5]

this is the holy Shechina; she has always been here.

the sin of our ancestors was to separate these divine aspects into idols.

blessed is the one trusts in the L-rd, whose trust is only in the L-rd. [6]