Poet Wrestling with Blood Falling Silent

You could vanish

& Aba says: Yes—

time to leave. Rarely now does he cant

& don tefillin. No temple to dovetail

in an emergency—& still both believe

the same reveal. Mama cursing the cures

that never stick, not

unlike magician’s

wax. It’s how a single disease communicates

by dissembling the host slowly, gaff & gasp,

sawing in half,

until a debt

of miracle snaps—

or falls flat, like cement,

without pomp & casket.

It’s when you’re too close

to the actual act of magic,

accidental

exposure,

that the cool flash

of covenants shutter.

What are you now,

not-child?

You’ll owe the universe everything

for this trick that, like a virus, attaches

only to wipe you clean. Is this why blood falls silent

when it’s a matter of  you or me? Or why deep space

is accelerating

further to rely

on a sacred scarcity, & love

is already the wraith of dark

matter separating planets that will have no one,

anyway, not even dust or the most patient of rain?

Father.

Mother.

I’m sorry it took a global crisis

to let your love skid & flourish,

leaving

so little space

for a mask of skinned rabbit,

ghost count of wild cards

shed from torn sleeve. Which part gave me away first,

the tremors in my hand, or the numb & limp & my

leaning

against

the walls you’ll restore until dense, until nothing

can get in. Was it when I had to confess I could

die, just like you, high-risk, if  I went back

to the only city I ever loved

but could no longer keep me

safe & breathing?

It took a moment.

To look into me

without light in your eyes

& say, so you want to take us

with you.        At first, I mis-

understood, reveling in

this, the only pure thing

to be left

whole & wilting—

                           it took a little while

                           for the other, so calmly,

                                      to agree,           it’s time to get

How long. How

long did it sleep.

How survival

instinct

outweighs

a house

of prayer

that was never

dealt for all of us, us three

silences in a spun of wool,

slip of ram’s eye pleading

in thicket, wet coal & dry

brush amid the wicked. How I am now without past

or bond or dream. How the light inside the temple

mocks me.