photo: The Simpsons, from Jon Pattillo's Blog

Leviticus 10:1-3

Brother,
these rules will be the death of us:
this “how to please me”
this tutorial of the soul.
How can passion
wear a girdle?
Answer questions?
Wash?
Where is the sacrifice
in this ritual
if our flesh isn’t in it?
Our everything,
sewn together with time…
Brother,
this lust
grows dusty
with regulation
and waiting
and brain;
It’s the ancient inertia again.
Time we climbed out of the Egypt in ourselves…

When we were slaves,
we moved,
we cried;
The One We Long For
split the sea
for bony wretches in shrouds
- – in clouds.
And now:
Princes
in regal whites,
we lounge like old women – -
knitting our urges into underwear,
cozy and maddening
and pink.
Brother,
it will be
the death of us
to think.

- SKE, May 2001

This poem was inspired by, and is imprecisely based on, a class on the Torah Portion of “Shmini,” given by Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg.