Babel’s Steel Towers

 

Imagine the Wright brothers watching as

Their wondrous flying box plane transformed slowly

Takes to the sky as the great albatross

In blank verse of Empire – the final Boeing

Steel giant, seven-forty-seven slices

Dead across entire floors, asbestos

Laden walls, toppling Babel’s Towers,

Steel beams that pierced the sky toward some god.

The digital antenna, millions

Of dollars, high enough on the roof

To derail angels, and the PBS

Operator to man it were lost.

In the time it takes a person to exhale,

Everything fell clean along the steel roads

Leading down, the earth burned with steel, dust

Flooded the air. On the injured ground, people

Spoke the same languages for moments

Then forgot how.

The State of the Affair

 

I am having

A lesbian affair

With Jerusalem,

(Why is the city

Always a “she?”)

You male poets

Beware – did you

Ever ask her

Orientation?

(Which way is East

Inside the city that

Is the East?)

I lose all direction

But in and in.

Jerusalem Cat Fights

 

Jerusalem & I

Sometimes

Have cat

Fights – I

Said I needed space

After an old man

Kissed me instead

Of leading me to

The synagogue,

And another one in

Religious attire

Tried to pick

Me up at Yad

Vashem, because

A holocaust memorial

Is the best place

To find single

Women. He said

Wouldn’t you

Rather sit here,

And talk to me?

So I told

The city,

That’s it, I need

To leave. Could you

Be less subtle?

You’re

Ejecting me,

Like the prophets’

Tirade. So we spent

Some time apart.

And the reunion,

When it came, was

Captivity lifted, I

Entered like a

Dreamer, with her

Language on my lips,

A psalm of rejoicing.

I stayed until

She kicked me out

Again, with her

Talk of uprising,

Shots fired in waiting,

A Yom Kippur

Of unnatural silence.

This time I

Return a citizen,

With an identity card

In case she doesn’t

Realize where I

Belong.

 Gender In Practice

 

You were already

Married to

A list of your

Caste, though

You put if off

Semi-valiantly.

It was fine

With me, I

Was engaged

To the theater.

No, my gender is

I am a playwright,

A poet, a literary

Theorist. Is there

A bathroom for that,

Can I check a box

For that identity?

I have been

Jew-sexual,

I fall in love

With individuals.

All this

male / female

Rhetoric

Appeals to me

Literally

In theory only.

Can I add that

To my passport?

Can I apostille it

On my birth certificate?

Could I have a valid

ID already?

To Call Me Your Favorite

 

You were supposed to be my professor

An authority, adult enough to know

Better than to flirt back, to call me your

Favorite, in so many words, voluble

In praise of my mind. You never ever wore

A wedding ring – perhaps it no longer

Fit, or Israeli men don’t –

You, being a hybrid, followed

Some conventions, the top two buttons

Of your shirt carelessly left undone.

The books around your room curiously

English, the OED at hand, but you allowed

Me little time to gaze at books, we gossiped.

You – Shaherazade – telling tales of woe,

Of love and darkness, Israeli authors,

Names, names, names to entertain me a thousand

Nights, or until fraternizing with a coed

Crossed that mirror where Lewis Carroll

Gazed at Alice Liddell, and petit object

A (the young girl) gazed back. I saw you looking.

Outing Glinda

 

“Too long I’ve been afraid of losing love I guess I’ve lost.

If that’s love, it comes at much too high a cost.

I’d sooner buy defying gravity.”

                                                                - Elphaba, Wicked

 

I had to find

My own

Voice again

After you and

Your love affair

With me, those four

Years when you

Found me everywhere

And tried with every

Breath to draw me

With your words

And every gesture from

Other rhetoric or

Conversation.

You joined any company

I kept, every study session,

My walk home

Alone time. You gave

Advice to tie me to you.

Your questions were never

Open-ended: I might lose

Your direction,

(… or catch on).

You spoke

While I sang descant:

An aria around me.

While others watched you

Flirt with boys, you sang

“It’s in his kiss” to me –

I question the gender

Reference in your verse.