My Empty Turned Out Pockets

I walked through my courtyard to meet you.Sunset lights up a dove's breast perchedon the roof. We come together, don't we,because we are blinded by beauty.

Once on the front page of the Houston Chronicle,a Mexican couple wept, doves cradled in their arms.As the birds released in their son's schoolyardfollowing his funeral, returned to nestle in his parent's arms,so the dead return to alarm us back with beauty.

I know there has been a heavy blackcape over your heart since your mother died.She is returning to lift it. So, you want to take controlof death? The desire to kill your boyfriend,who betrayed you, leaves you sleepless, exhausted?

Last night I awakened to the vision of a white handkerchief,a blood stain slowly flowering and I was afraid for you,and overtaken with the need to call you,but I halted wondering, Whose blood was flowering?

Who was crying out and to whom?Did I prick my finger on the thorn of your sufferingso that I might tell myself to live?You cry when I tell you of my vision of blood.

You say that you have lost the will to live.I feel as if all my pockets are turned out.Exposed, empty,who am I to encourage such trust?

At Gladys's funeral the Rabbinit was wrapped in white,according to the Yemenite tradition. Just before dusk,as she lit the Sabbath candles, a robin called her from the yardand she knew Gladys had passed.

Not long before Gladys's death, on Shavuot, the festival of wheat,the young women had paraded with cakes for the Rabbi to judge.Gladys and I had stuffed ourselves on these dessertswhile the Rabbinit startled me by her tales of nightclubsand the strapless dresses that she wore in the forties.

Gladys asked the Rabbinit for help: why, though she studied Torah,was she not able to make any real changes in her life?Gladys knew that she was dying. Still, the question was not bitter,there was no urgency, simply a desire for change.I felt unable, if called, to enter,balancing my own risen loaf, unprepared for judgment.