Hand Washing

But why, why? So strange
―an innocent oversight,
or burnt to ashes in our Holocaust,
or a tractate slipped behind a shelf
in our vast library of right and wrong―that

neither did Rabbi Yohannan ben Zakkai expound,
nor brilliant Maimonides explicate,
nor any sage Talmid Chakam, ancient or modern, tell

            why the Talmud,

which so sternly, so minutely, so expansively
demands we cleanse our hands of their impurity
with water poured from a particular cup

before eating bread,
after eating bread,
before worship,
after sleeping,
after touching a corpse,
before reciting a prayer,
after touching hidden parts of our body
or a menstruating woman,
after leaving a cemetery,
and so forth, and so on, so strange

            that our Talmud

omits to command us
to wash our opened hands
up to the wrist
with water poured from a particular cup
 after strangling a people to death.    
 

 

Dying Gloriously

Back then if we had to die we always died
as painfully and slowly as we could:
machinegunned by the Nazis, Got me!
we cried, and climbed to our knees before we fell for good;

or backstabbed by the treacherous Comanches
we twirled and croaked and hit the hard wood floor,
as mothers keened and beat their breasts like banshees,
and then astonishingly rose once more,

and ptyew, ptyew, take that! take this!
till all of us lay flat with lolling tongues.
These days death still takes its own sweet time,
but now that we have serious need of them,
where is father’s war of right-and-wrong?
Where is mother's goodnight-dearest kiss?

 

Riverside Park, Early Morning

Early morning walking in the park,
an opening sky after a night of rain,
that rain-on-asphalt smell, mist on the paths
diamonds sparkling in the scrubby grass.
I’m the only one about, 
            lord of all I survey, 
            toureloo tourelay.
I fire up the perfect cigarette.
 

A bundle on a bench, an ancient woman
huddling under a wet clear plastic sheet
with all her things. She nods and mumbles something
I can not understand and Thank you darlin.’
Something something something thank you darlin’.
I face her with a complicated a smile
(hi and bye, I must be on my way,
            sympathy, 
            apology?
encouragement) a put-together smile,
like something you could make with Lego blocks,
and pass on by.
 

“Can I have a cigarette, thank you darlin’”
            is what she said.
            I hurry back.
I offer her a Marlboro and light it.
 

She closes her eyes and brings it into her
like a gasp of relief (as if a headache went,
or as if something fell but didn’t break,
or something she’d lost turned up)
and lets it go through pursed reluctant lips.
            Or as if nobody
            ever again
would wake her up and tell her to move on.
 

The sun is warming up, it looks as if
            it’s going be
            a beautiful day,
warm and full of goodness. Thank you darlin’.

 

The Three Peak Fold

Here he comes, the man himself,
a perfectly folded handkerchief
in the breast pocket of his black
million dollar suit. And immediately
down the street and pffft, no more. 
Disappeared around the corner,
him and the clothes he wore with him.

I wonder about the handkerchief,
and what happens after he's used it.
Of course, dabbing dry a tear
or patting mist from a mirror,
or wiping lipstick from his cheek
or the spittle of a little love-spat,
I understand all that, but
what about an ordinary sneeze,
an achoo or two. Obvious occasion for a handkerchief but
he'll have to conceal the spot of snot
behind one of the several triangles
of the classic three-peak fold.
All this takes time. Not to mention

pyromanic coughing fits
the phlegm-scattering kind,
shirtfronts, hands, sleeves, and suppose
he has a nosebleed. He
vomits on a banquet table.
He's stranded in a booth with
no toilet paper. Poor guy.
And then the hard part,
the folding it back as it was. He

lays it flat
with a point pointing up,
a diamond,

folds
the bottom corner up
to meet the top corner,

folds the side points in,
just past the center,
aligning them
with the folded edge, making
90 degree angles

on each side.
Then he  returns it
to his breast pocket

with the folds facing in.
It can't be easy
 

 

I’ve posted my poems on a Substack page which you’re invited to check out: https://williamanelson.substack.com/