On Community

1. grief

the stars look down on me as i suffer with grief heavy-bodied and 
grave or gravid i can’t tell which
it would be a blessing for the clouds to break and send down
a birth of something new, blessed rain to the seeds that break
my water with child

2. fact and censorship

exile in place as silencing
i can’t say that or else they will stop listening
they will all pile on with condemnations, shaming
finger pointing they will call gentle,
‘exposing their vulnerability’ to challenge what they perceive as my greater power
and it makes me want to lift my skirt,
to have them behold the sacred vulva that is the fact they are so afraid to witness

3. on fire

our house is on fire
and outsiders fan the flames pour gasoline light more matches delight
in our inability to get out,
we’re done
and what they will have left is something sterile, maddening and generations-long to unpick and defuse

4. eye of needle

choices
leave one side or leave the other and be unwhole
straddle and be silenced in one place, silence myself to not feel directly the scorn and wrath that keeps witches under the structures
breaking loose from under the floorboards we dance and then they shut us up again
in the other place talk about the other way i’ve been shut up
which is the same really 
and meet the glances of popcorn eating shame as curiosity deference sidelong glances
it doesn’t work
and my exile is a narrow place mitzrayim
that is an eye of a needle i have to thread yet not do it alone

Jewish Mother Goddess

she’s the one you want, and the one who remembers
she’s heimishe, she’s got this
light and she’s cuddly
she wants to hold you
she’s got curly black hair and brown-tinged skin, her lips are soft almost purple
she’s sweet
she might sing
she likes to laugh and tell jokes
nice jokes, kind ones
gentle
she remembers
everything
she shifts, her lap is gold and rubies and
she remembers
she heaves up
and she remembers
she heaves,
grieving what she lost which was
her own little girl self,
she holds something for you
and remembers to say
don’t be afraid,
this is my trauma not yours
she sets it down gently
lets her jaw unclench
she tells a story
that makes herself almost laugh, she’s
distracted and goes dancing off the pier
thin and ghostly girl now,
she will come back though
the ancient other is holding her deep
calling her
within the depths
remembering her
again