Jerusalem, July 2015
I have written a note and sent it
with a friend to the cracks of the Kotel
In the dust and heat
it might find God
where I have failed-
somewhere in the dry, dark spaces
between the remnants of thousands of years;
and there, in the dust and stifled heat,
my own words take up residence,
like an impostor.
The pale morning light rises
while a fluttering image of me
frets now and again
before the dumb mirror’s expectant face.
It was the Dybbuk that took my mind
and voice
and made me do those things.
It was not me,
I could not have done them.
How can I make you understand?
By then, I had my damage on
and wore it like a fine silk sheath,
unaware it consumed me entirely.
In these unused moments
old feelings float to the surface,
fishing up from my darknesses.
The Kotel eats my words,
a stone face uttering nothing.
Dust whisks through the eshel.
God is silent.