Christian Co-Workers Schedule an Important Conference on Yom Kippur, and: Scissor Paper Rock

Christian Co-Workers Schedule an Important Conference on Yom Kippur

Note: "Israel" and "Sarah" were middle names the Nazi regime forced German Jews to take on their official papers.

Would they notice if I wear a yellow star?
Would they hide me then? Or turn in my name?
Better not ask, mustn't push my friends too far.

"Come in, come in, have bread, have tea. Look, a jar
of honey even. I'll be right back," he claims-
of course, he saw that I wear a yellow star.

Israels and Sarahs in a railroad car:
trembling, bewildered, they are afraid
even to ask. And don't push friends too far

to look at your forearm, or examine your scar:
even cancer survivors feel the shame
when radiation leaves a yellow star.

That ugly word for twilight: crepuscular,
like kike or zid, hebe and sheeny, shady all the same.
Don't ask your friends what their meanings are.

Don't ask your friends what their leanings are:
stir up trouble, you'll be blamed.
You cannot, must not, push your friends too far,
or they'll make you wear the yellow star.

Scissor Paper Rock

Sycamore trees drift west beneath
a far escarpment, the freight
of stars mirrored in our windows. Shrapnel

of double-pane glass penetrates
the bleeding heart of Cecil's Internal Medicine,
exiting p.489 ("Teratology: Congenital Anomalies"),

as a mother-search uncovers the stillborn
wingless dove, its tiny breast dismembered
by spasm, while under the sycamores

slugs and mealy bugs hum in orgasm.
Sleep and ether, known only by
the muttering swarm. Ether. Sleep.

Calendar makers have gone dormant.
Black swans mourn.