Rabbi
Your body sown,
circled in silk,
now counting
back down the way,
wet wings re-folded
imago to chrysalis
in the eye's hold.
Tincture of olive-bark and tear
by hoofbeat and stonesong
you cross, yid-bourne
and we wish ourselves
open at your side.
You mothered, you mattered
you aurochs that once caught Aaron's eye
now siren to the instars,
now ochre on the wind
blown from the palm
of a world left behind.
These marks on the map
antlered and rough drawn
sworn in blood and bristle
onto the doorpost of the sheepfold
of those who do not need you to have risen
in order to come after you to Jerusalem
where, bathed in all the pigments of unfinished life
feather to feather, skin to skin
and all the petals a sea upon which
we will learn how to die.