Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Today you walked over, out of the blue really
And all of it is a little bit of a dream,
It must be because you somehow convinced
me to meet your family, and they are passing on
wine glasses to me, your friends are teasing you
about your ex-lovers, the crazy ones,
I am especially amused by the knife wielder,
There is a canyon that separates us,
And we are strangers in an intimate dinner
yet you are sitting right next to me,
asking me if I am alright, asking me for
confirmation, asking me if I wanted to eat yet,
in the middle your sister asks me which year
I graduated from college, when I say 2014
she says," you are such a baby" and this
beautiful friend of yours whispers "cradle-snatcher"
to you, and I am partly laughing, partly annoyed
at being thought too young because I really enjoyed
this, more than I have enjoyed going out with
people my own age, who terrify me with
their ridiculousness. You and I both have a flight
to catch tomorrow, at different times to different places.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

Treachery, that is how I see it now,
Political motives but also deeply personal
Running over all these years, hissing
and heaving in your house of worship,
To think that I didn't see it all these years,
All those nasty things said I felt deserved
 the guilt I bore for my people and their ritual cruelty,
for their categories of clean and unclean
But I could never have guessed the extent of
such treachery, to starve us to death,
to block our lifelines, does your God condone it?
To demand it for yourself, to deny it for others,
How do you reconcile your praise of God,
your Sunday worship to such vileness?
There had been a time when I hadn't
 seen the difference between us,
but then again I had never
 believed in an infallible God.