Inroit an end. The calendar leaves wilting to blotches of ink, blatt blowing off and away on a wind from the west; the hands of the clocking watch on the wrist slowing to stasis, clasping each other at dawn and dusk, then at every other time between — the freezing of the tide and its moon of one face, turnedcheek lune with its modest blush; opposite the sun, resting its house-warming, retiring to the reflection of Miami behind the clouds to putter about at an altitude no sky could ever scrape, highrisen amid the greatest lot ever vacant. Though it’s been worthless since day one, which was day never, obsolete since forever, time is presently asserting its purpose, its fundamental truth: as a nothingness, against which to measure death. A height marked short at the doorjamb, hinges tall and growing. Noon is lunch. Dinner means six. Linner and dunch indulging between. Hunched, tired, icesalted. Sandy Hook hikes its pants over the waist of the state. Newark exhales. Bereaved, bereft, weakened. Were it another time, if one could exist, if there might be two species of nothingness and those both existing concurrently, the city might invite this: lying elder and willow at the foot of the ass kicked through the gates, which are located, it’s said, on both sides of the Tunnel. As for its rider, it’s been said He’d preach, too: withholding, limitation…no new taxes, He’d promise, better health care and schools for our kinder — before ascending, then forgetting everything, every promise, every preachment unpracticed and then everyone, as well, that’d ever helped Him, who got Him where and who he is, today — to the Temple. Then trashing it as badly as His house shall require our cleaning. Tzedakah’s always welcome, then with admission you are, too — reservations not required; how the people don’t even need to be reminded anymore, informed as to what they’re ignoring, what they’ve forgotten, what’s forsaken, no — more like what or Who they’re supposed to be venerating next. A given up given over, a negative lent. An altar stood on its head.
Palm Sunday proves a lesser passing: in silence, without ceremony, host to no circumstance; lashes stay in without pomp or parade; the people dressed down sit at their tables and cry; station to station it’s static, the mating call of snow…empty avenues and streets, the underground tunnels of the trains stilled in rust; Staten Island stranded in a lawn of ice, which is fenced in by concrete, which is cemented to earth that’s ungated; Midtown a block abandoned even by shadows; no one’s seen: eyes cast out like stones at their feet they can’t even see each other, or won’t; no sound’s heard beyond the weather: their ears have become cold, and listen only within; how they’re all inside, they’re interiorized, palms in their palms not knowing what to do: discussing, debating, planning for which to prepare. Ben remains inside the Registry to which His room’s been transferred, its furniture, His filthy heap entire: the bed, the chest of drawers intact and rumpled with the lamp atop unlit. He yawns. Idle hands, idler palms. He undoes His robe, extracts. Verily, at the gates of His loneliness, which are His legs, His thighs with their hindquarters lamed, by an angel named I’m curious, as if to prevent escape, postpone His flee, Him lazily limping — He lays down His loads, unburdens Himself of skin. Upon this Sunday, which is the outdated, outmoded Sabbath, He lashes Himself with His palms. Fast then slow and shvitzy. A Garden without a tree to damn Him whether with shade or fruit, He’ll seed Himself alone. As if to mark the stations of an inheritance unshed.
0800: left sock, held damp in His mouth,
0848: right sock, a different pair and still in bed,
1102: left sock, again, but this once turned insideout,
1333: on the Registry’s wall, half upon a portrait of Himself unframed,
1400: in the Registry again, all over the tiled floor, over the railing of the balcony to sully the remainder of His image,
1407: into His scapular, known as tzitzit, whose quartered fringes will become bound together, drying hard, into one knot who could worry free,
1454: and then smeared with thumb into His mother’s robe’s low hem — fisted quickly, but ruminantingly rubbed — which will cleave to His tzitzit still worn below and wet,
And what did these socks look like? asks Doctor Tweiss, though he’s staring at them preserved for exhibit in plastic.
One was black, the other blue; I’d slip them over my…myself; then stroke the sock proper, like so.
As if a second foreskin, the other doctor says, an auxilary prepuce, if you will…
Though only a suggestion, He feels He’s contractually bound to nod — the gesture of His hand.
1502: now…begun in a waitingroom, then continued in the next, finished here in this office, underneath the gowned covers atop the analysand’s couch, with His feet up in stirrups and a blush choking at His neck.
To sprout from these seeds: all a question of interpretion, a matter of blemish, a blot on the mind…a whole host of Hims in motile miniature: hurtling spermatozoa, with their own yarmulkes, grown spiraling payos already and curly beards that snare them into stains.
What seems to be the problem? asks which doctor, is the problem. Adolescence. Anything I can do about it?
I can pay today in cash.
1628: in the front seat of the limousine,
1748: and then again in the limo’s rear as He’s returning,
1856: in the widest hallway of the Great Hall on the way to do this in the toilet,
2035: then, while breaking bread in the Commissary enormous and alone, Him indulging singlehandedly,
2205: and then again between the pages of His only evening prayerbook, Arvit it’s called while faking its devotion,
2337: into His own yarmulke, finally it’s late, and thankfully white, which He replaces atop His head then, to sleep another day…
And for all these sins and for many more, O so many more of them unto sheer unaccountability — for these sins unto even the omissions therein, and then for all of their sins obtaining, too, You should forgive Him, Thou shalt, O so pleased with yourself, do us all a favor, will you, please…forgive.
Forgive Him for His
Apathy.
Forgive Him for His