tova

I read a short interview in Time magazine about a woman named Tova who was a flawless matchmaker, but only for Orthodox Jews. She claimed that the first time she made a match, God spoke to her.

-d


******


Tova

Five pointed stars swing over my head
a silent wind chime
that only I can hear.

People are like icebergs
but age and violent sunlight
make everything that is underwater
seem less significant.

I must be some sort of reparation
for the ash we lived in all those years.
The only thing god could send
was flowers and chocolates.
Diamonds are the new manna.

I send them all to live in white houses
with fresh cut flowers brought in by some Gentile woman
every Wednesday.
Bathrooms with monogrammed towels
and portraits in the paper.

And I sit on my digital cloud
waiting for names and faces to magnetize.

satisfaction

Satisfaction

I was, as always, a spectacle.
My eyes, when they were shut,
were like two eraser marks
and when I opened them, you could see all the mistakes.

Such a strange bird I must have been.
The female flaunting her few bright feathers
that ridiculous yellow against brown.

You left when most people are waking up
and offered me no promise of finding an end to the maze
or a solution to the puzzle.
Only the theories spinning in my head
knocking against the skeletal wall.

Was I a whore or a nurse?
A trapeze artist or a crumbling statue?
An addict or a kind apothecary?

Another wedding dress is burning
in the little closet in my brain.
Only this time, I use the sleeve
to light my cigarette.

white rabbit

White Rabbit

So smoke your cigars and drink your wine.
There’s enough matches to go around
and there is always someone to clean your lipstick off the glass.

I never thought I’d miss the collegiate life.
That slot machine everyone kept feeding
on the off chance we’d get lucky.
Still I can’t say bohemia isn’t any kind of insurance
I can rely on.

Now I sit up in the attic drinking bottled Pabst
and eating blueberries for breakfast
too afraid to know love as anyone more than an acquaintance
he wasn’t that great of a friend anyway.

So I am left as nervous as a white rabbit,
waiting to see if I’ll appear
out of nowhere.