The first week of the pandemic,
I delivered two bags of flour–
one whole wheat, one white–
to our elderly neighbors.
It was dusk, their home brightly lit.
Through the window,
I glimpsed the gray-haired man lifting his wife
into a dance.

*
When wife and husband embrace and kiss,
their four arms spell
the feminine Divine name
composed of four letters,
their four lips spell
the masculine Divine name
composed of four letters.

*
In the Galician village of Sokolova,
my wife’s great grandfather
was known as the “Roite Shochet,”
the red-headed butcher.
His given name, Baruch,
his wife’s, Bracha–
male and female
for blessing and blessing.

*
A blessing. My wife placed a cup
of steaming coffee beside
a plate of buttered toast and scrambled eggs.
In my lunch box, the sandwich—
hummus, lettuce, cheese—
she prepared for my dinner.

*
I can’t go back in time
to warn a dreamy-eyed teenager
not to fall for the saxophonist’s
after-party promise. I can’t
chance upon myself on the stairwell
at Taylor Allderdice High School
and explain patience.
Because God split the first couple
into male and female selves,
all our lives we ache
for wholeness.

*
An accordion wall
divided my wife’s bedroom
from her childhood apartment.
A year of college overseas,
her first taste of freedom.
Mornings, young men waited at her door
with danishes and chocolate milk
in their outstretched hands.

*
Before creation, G-d divided
the feminine Divine light
from the masculine Divine light,
Shechina from Kudsha Brich Hu.
In the Messianic Era,

the two will reunite.

*
A compliment from a colleague,
a shared glance two subway stops from home.
Because the first couple
ate the fruit of confusion,
we desire those
who are not our other half.

*
May Hashem guard your goings and comings,
arrivals and departures,
your Netflix account,
your dining room table,
and your marital bed.

*
After the prelude,
the embrace and the kiss,
the comingling
of the masculine and feminine names,
husband and wife reunite
as one flesh–
skin to skin
beneath a covering,
revealed and concealed,
as the Divine moves
beneath the veneer
of the physical world.

*
Masking tape around the handles of our kitchen faucet,
a sister-in-law’s hand-me-down dresses.
Why do you ask for so little?

Why did I marry a woman with a childlike streak?
And how, possessing that streak,
did you make it through the day 

we learned our daughter had lost her hearing,

the years I barely looked up
from student papers?

*
Once, I saw a man in a navy suit and dark fedora
kneeling in the mud
at the edge of his wife’s open grave.
He pled for forgiveness
while strangers
born across the ocean
lowered her body into the earth.

*
If Sarah represents the body
and Abraham the soul,
why did God tell Abraham
to listen to Sarah’s voice?
Because, the mystics answer,
in the Messianic Era,
we will see that the source of the body
is loftier than the source of the soul,
and so a soul descends into a body.

*
One August night,
both 20,
we sat on your childhood bed,
backs against your pink bedroom wall,
the accordion divider half open,
and spoke of going
our separate ways.

We would have a good life together,
you said, raising your voice
over the AC’s steady rumble.
You will see.