Darkness of My Room

I am beset by thoughts of you
and your two cats— one white, one black—
who must orbit you at all times,
waiting for your fingers around them.

I try to consider other things:
how startling is the first heat of summer,
how comets never return in our lifetime
so the higher world remains
dulled by endless clouds,
how continents have always been
drifting apart into loneliness,

yet I can’t help but feel the Sephardic fullness
of your dark absent lips,
the great mysticism of your black
hair unbound curling down.

I wanted to make you laugh until
you said “yes”
to seeing me again and again,
so I gambled with humor like someone lost
in another country.

I need your Israeli accent whispering
in the darkness of my room—
oh, distant star, growing
more so by the day.

Playing Ball by the Synagogue

Glowing with sweat
under a dusk of many colors,
children drop
their dark yarmulkes
like unhooked parachutes
on crisp autumn leaves.

Hearing their wild shouts rise
through cracks in biblical scenes
of the stained
glass above, their fathers
start to pray
and sway as if blue
crowns of flame
on pale candle.