Azrael Visitations

Let me atone for all my sins, iniquities, and transgressions,

that I have committed before you.

—traditional Jewish deathbed confessional

Hyenas graze

peaceful as fallow deer. Under an olive bough,                a girl searches for small signs,a speckled beetle, the silk wrap of a luna moth.                She recovers a red stone, turns it, cups it

cool against her ear like a conch. Now a sleeping asp stirs,                enters the night, hissing— hanefesh, hanefesh.I see him sloughing scales & spent brille. Vision blurs.                Does the dream grasp the soul’s reckoning? In a land

without ground, without sky, how shall I know? The pliancy of youth                dries to brittle reed. In a charmer’s basket, the girlwizens, a swaddling for Azrael. Under cover, Miriam squats,                her brother’s silence falling upon her, leprous

white. I awaken to wet linens, mouth sour, tasting the bite                of bitter herbs. North winds howl through a window I left open,a steely sky announces October. Today is Simchat Torah.                Water flows over my body. The last parsha must be read.

Woe to me: I am lost
                         Isaiah 6:5

Vacuous womb. My fist knuckles my chest. I am                a furrowing, a lily whose petals decades ago letgo. The gorge of my body mourns Rachel,

I follow Miriam into a land of fata morganas. I soothe                her open sores. I stumble off, a sin offering.Miriam heals, returns to the tent of the women.

The shadow of a red-tailed kite flies low; five-fingered                wing tips flex skyward. In the desert morningthere are lives to be lost & carrion for the taking.

Could I as a woman

hear the sweet voice of the God’s beloved,                lingering sad as the harp’s plucked note: Leftto pulse into silence. & could I as a woman                intuit the pardes in the lines of my palm?

Azrael will come—the beauty of my common name                erased. Out of mist, he will return meto obscurity. Could I as a woman see his splendor,                taste ineffable sweetness in his open mouth?