I. The Rabbi and Death

Even chopped liver films with it,
edges of kugel rusting, rubbery
flesh of fish. Yea, though I walk

through the valley of Shiva, I
will fear no evil, my Tums
and my Seltzer comfort me. He

takes notes, rehashes stories,
"A good man, good man. No,
I didn't know that he was married."

How cryptic we get in death, he
thinks, how boring the hole, endless
ropes that lower, the flowery "now

nows." The end's a pain in the gut,
weekends always spent at somebody's
service, the valley of garlic breath.
 
 

II. The Rabbi's Fantasy and The Synagogue Board

He's been wearing two six-shooters
slung low beneath his coat for years.
No one knows. Mrs. Madansky

whines about the chandeliers, Mr. Fine
about the food. Mrs. Epstein's accent
sets the table spinning. The agenda

now has wings. Mr. Basevitz, former
acrobat at the Warsaw follies, juggles
chairs with stocking feet. Elijah taps

the Rabbi on his shoulder, hooks a
hand behind his knee. A shot rings
out. Plaster, water pitcher, gold watch,

garters, coins, a lighter and bread fall
from the ceiling. "That's goddamn
right," he says, "I'm the Rabbi."
 
 
 

III. The Rabbi and Prayers

It's all in the performance: a little
more wrist with the palm frond, a
deeper bend at the knee. In the morning,

Hebrew letters, sounds divorced
from meaning, sprout wings, flap
flap flap their wisdom in his face.

In the afternoon, they shoot
below the carpeting, ripping layers
of veneer from pews: something

lost, something gained. Evenings,
he prods the floor of the synagogue
with the forked tip of a dandelion

weeder, following their seraphed
trail, never getting all the roots.
 
 
 
 

IV. The Rabbi After His Speech

No more than curve over curve
of forehead, the audience gapes,
the virtue of polemic

unraveling into rhetoric, shattering
on seats. This is his life: a sleek
brush of his wife's skin,

the happy "Daddy" of his children.
Wire glasses, candle, fringed shawl
in the shape of a turned shoulder,

the wingèd book that spines away.
His shucked-off clothes
held up by the tendentious dead,

dressed in nothing but their texts,
the rabbi, left behind himself, steps out.
 
 
 
 

previously published in the CHICAGO REVIEW