At night

After the miracle of
your swift silver touch

and the still refuge of
your rose firmament arms

I lie in the abundant solitude
of afterglow as
you snore soft stars

and I
watch the sky
with strange joy,

a corporeal constellation
beside me

married to creation.

Moshiach

The messiah will come,
promised by rebbes and
bumper stickers alike,
soon,
very soon,

The messiah will come
next Tuesday
or the next Tuesday after that
in fact he may be already
on his way

The messiah will come
anointed with oil
in the primrose light
a tzaddik
a leader
a King

The messiah will come
after the broken walls
of the Temple
when our prayers are true
when we are worthy

when justice
is just
when children’s stomachs
no longer growl like alleycats
when every heart
is as white
as the Yom Kippur kittel
and every tear
has poured into the Dead Sea

The messiah will come
after the desert
after the ghettoes
after the pogroms
after the

six

million

The messiah will come
The messiah will come
The messiah will

 

Emily McAvan is a Jewish-Australian writer whose work sits at the intersection between religious and secular.