Jay Liveson

Envy

The Day might envy rival Night
That wraps the world in gentle sleep,
That paints the skies with stellar light
And rocks the young in love's retreat.
The Night might envy rival Day
That prods the sun to pierce the clouds,
That colors melancholic gray,
And strips the world from slumber's shrouds.
But I who count my Days and Nights
As push and tug of two extremes--
And fill my Days with you in sight
And fill my Nights with you in dreams--
Can disregard their rivalry
As long as you are near to me.

 

Clinician

The patient fidgets in his seat across the desk, spins a tale, tracing
his path from doubt to terror. She's learned these fears, as he
touches a new asymmetry, lets his finger return, comparing sides.
No one enters her office without such a fear. In her world, mortality
leans back in the corner, exhaling casual smoke. They all know who's
in charge. She's learned from colored pathology texts wondering "Will
this be mine?" She sifts clues from the growing heap, weighs
findings, theories, conclusions.
She's learned from years of practice.
She's learned to write detailed notes.
She's learned to keep a cheerful veneer.
She's learned to stay protected behind the desk.
She's learned a constant peace.
She's learned a constant fear.

 

Holocaust Torah

The scroll is cloaked
in a glass showcase
stripped of its velvet cover
with its embroidered flame.
Its parchment is splayed wide
posts spread to expose the scriptures.

Daniel passes it often
on the way to Bar Mitzvah lessons.
He has no inkling
that Grandpa Daniel
(whose name he carries)
had read from this scroll
though his skin
did not merit preservation
in the Nazi museum.

Someday Daniel will press
against the glass, note
the charred scroll edges.
Someday he'll read
the Hebrew text
each letter adorned
vertical flowing
into curls and arcs.
Someday he'll notice
a trail of oval blotches
dripped across the parchment
a clotted coagulum
from the last aliya
blessings murmured
under threat of death.
Someday Grandpa Daniel
will whisper one again.