Squirrel Communion

The destructive capacity

of nonstop busyness

rivals nuclear weapons

and is addictive

as opium.

My Rabbi told me this

after he died.

That is how I know

time is a construct.

And yet knowledge, too,

itself is relative,

and limited.

I climbed for three hours straight yesterday

and then slept like the dead at night.

There is no joy I know

better than the one I feel

motionless and destroyed

in my bed.

We are able to change the past

by transforming the present

my dead Rabbi says.

The more we have suffered in the past

the stronger a healer we can become.

Once in my dining room,

as I ate half a leftover burrito alone,

a squirrel jumped on the fence next to our window

and started nibbling on something he stole

from the compost.

We both startled when we noticed each other

and stared perfectly still for a moment.

Then we both went back to eating,

still staring,

but neither of us any longer

alone.

One cannot steal

what is freely given.

One cannot touch a single moment

without kissing gently

behind the ear

of eternity.

I am hopeful today,

for the corpse of my Rabbi

emits a teaching

which suggests I, one day,

may be able

to heal

the world.

Suffragism

for __________

I thought

that’s the smallest bird I’ve ever seen

but then it just

turned out to be

a leaf.

I cover my yawn

on a plane

with a book

and this is my face

between your legs.

The rain pounding the tree line from an angle.

The woman I threw out of the library into it

yesterday,

after calling the cops.

When you kind of want to kill yourself

it is a great blessing

to have a friend

who kind of wants to kill themself

too.