Shevirat ha-Kelim, 2025

When I ache (and God, how I ache)

Every small cell in my large quaking body
Forms a mouth
            Full of teeth and venom,
beaks and tongues.

And they gnash
And they suck
And they plead

I try two fingers, instead of one
Wondering if it will quiet the insatiable hunger.

I immerse myself in the mythic waters of the Sambayton,
The wild torrents surely will fill their need.

I lick the wicked salt from the pillar of the Mother’s mistake.
(but, God, how I ache.)

I find the deepest chalice I can carry in my feeble arms,
Sanctifying it with my fervent plea.
I pour until deep purple overflows,
And it begs to be relieved of the burden I gave it.

Only, just before my dry lips can find the rim,

The vessel explodes,

Casting away the shards of it’s failure
Hiding them under cars and rocks and cigarette butts
Me, left to hunt on hands and knees
With a broken back
And bleeding palms.

I could never reassemble them all
Because I am certain the sharpest shards
Are lodged in me

And I ache (oh god, how I ache)

I refuse, for a little while, to see the broken vessel’s testimony of my greed.
The gnashing teeth

The splinter perforations
Carving new words into the stone of my truth.

But each time I start to feel a silence
Rise up and kiss me between my desolate eyes

I remember the shells at the bottom of the sea
That have never seen light

And I ache (oh god, how I ache).