Dear Sal
Dear Sal,
In a room on the river
we crooned hymns
to honeysuckle, eulogized
a stuffed trout, carved nectarines
& waltzed within
the scent. You fed me
dark bread slathered in butter
& I did not speak of
the French, the Germans, my mouth
too full of sweetnesses. Your steady hands
aglow, you touched me
with such unbearable
attention, accurate
fingers unlacing the slaughter,
numbers & the names of countries
crumbling in your eyes.
Dear Sal,
For nearly a year I have been building a Word.
Hammering letters together, welding with a torch
that shoots a tongue-colored flame. I began
my work while remembering your pinky. How she
stands apart from all the others. They, a cluster
of gossips; she, preening, disturbing the sensibilities.
It is almost finished, the Word. I would say it here
but the walls would come crashing down. I wish
to say it in your house. In your father, mother,
brother & his twelve-gauge altar. Instead I holler
recipes at lizards, cry Kaddish over birds that dash
their brains out on the door. The Word is going
extinct in my mouth. Sing with me, Bashert, once
more. There is not enough room in the world
for our silence.
Dear Sal,
Burning beds in a field I command the light, unleash it in the direction of your dress.
I repeat your name to a cavalry of stars, hold to their noses a section of your dress.
You found me trembling like a donkey at the altar, starving & skinny, my hair a ghost’s nest.
You took me inside to bind my wound in water, nourish me on the confection of your dress.
A basket of peaches underneath your arm, the orchards of silence uprooted in your chest,
you stroll through the blinding honeysuckle, its scent the only explanation for your dress.
A sycamore sags on the side of a road, bones of a forgotten saint, unsung & under-blessed.
May you be delivered up from her roots, may you bloom in the rich salvation of her dress.
How dark is the sum of the unburied dead? They scale the moonlight & bellow distress.
What relief awaits when you unfold the fabrics & open the organization of your dress.
Refugees cascade from the mouths whales, in a language of no they are the last remaining yes.
I came from the dark with a war in my teeth, seeking clemency here in the nation of your dress.
I die in in the tub as the coffee is brewing - I am lifted by the angels, I am lifted by regrets.
I am brought back to life in a room on the river, howling about the negation of your dress.
Dear Sal,
After all these years I’ve reached my age. To celebrate I eat a tuna salad on rye
the size of a Buick. There is the mishegas & there is the mishegas. The man who
gave me a voice, he didn’t even speak the language. Oy, what a shondeh. Do you
know what the word Bashert means? It means I would go back to Europe for you.
I would eat mayonnaise on the Eiffel Tower. I would surround a tree with presents
for the phantoms of our children, sing to the Rhine in the language of my people.
If that, Bashert, is your wish. What have I been trying to say about desire? Stuffing
tuna salad sandwich into my mouth. It is not something I can afford. At this time
of day the park is almost empty. I want to hide in the grass & make animal sounds,
get the whole damn place to myself. Bashert, imagine! Just the two of us, strolling
hand in hand, the beast of longing whimpering under our shoes. We call it longing
because it takes forever. I am, years old. How can it matter? I hope somehow I have
made you laugh. What do you call the most Jewish fish? The anchoyvey. I made that
one up while the moon ate my legs. Ah yes, & the shadow is mine. My beard, heavy
with fish & salt & seeds. What do you call a garden on the bottom of the ocean?
When the garden rises up in you, Bashert, what do you call?