Prayer, Hoshanah Morning

What prayers are ours,

we women carrying

lulav and etrog

this Hoshanah morning

Devorah wraps her tallis

tighter and we pray for

Judy, recovering from cancer.

I watch the way her arm bends

as she moves, almost pointing,

telling us: Here, there,

in front, behind, right, left.

The world is around us

and I think then to those

small acts of ours:

smacking willow leaves

against the floor for rain,

the man standing in protest

outside the embassy, or

the way you press your lips

to my forehead when the D train

goes over the bridge, rocking us

toward the city,

what possesses us to do these things,

what difference does it make,

my hand perfumed with etrog's shadow

the sweetness worn off by the time

I get home, the one I hoped would

still kiss my fingers as I turned the key.

Like Pig

If you do the thing that is forbidden,

let's call it like pig,

but he doesn't know what pig

is like. He's never had it!

Let's call him Observant.

Observant remembered reading Charlotte's

Web. He put his fingers in his fringes

and thought of spider webs. He often wondered

if G-d would leave him messages

in his tsitsit so that the other kids

would stop making fun of him.

At night, he'd pray for the shiny script

of Mrs. Solomon's stickers

when he understood a gemara,

but a sparkly Tov Ma'od never appeared

below his trousers. Instead of abandoning

G-d, all the more so, Observant praised G-d

who he thought was on his side. G-d knew

if the other boys, Secular and Son of a Shiksa

saw the writing on Observant's trousers,

it wouldn't be pretty.

Regardless, Secular and Son of a Shiksa

tormented Oberservant intermittently

throughout their formative years. One year

Observant invited his frenemies over for the meal.

He thought he'd win them over with his charm

and stellar cooking. However, Observant

had never cooked. That was his mother's job.

So his challah didn't rise until it was too late

and he was pulling it out of the oven when

Secular and Son of a Shiksa arrived. Secular

had been waiting for this moment his entire

meaningless life. He had remembered something

he learned from a Shabbaton ages ago when

his parents valued religious education. He knew

he and Son of a Shiksa could eat the challah,

but since Observant had broken the Sabbath

with his bread making, but also had to

eat challah on Shabbos, Secular saw

that Oberservant had baked himself

into a Halachkic corner. He presented

the challah that he and Son of a Shiksa

had bought from the hippie vegan bakery---

he hoped it was laced with pot---

and wondered if Observant would

deign to eat something without

a heckshere. The corner wrapped

its arms around Observant

as he deliberated over what to do:

eat the kosher challah he made

unintentionally violating the Sabbath

or eat of Secular's bread. He wasn't so naïve.

He knew that hippies were the way they were

because they smoked marijuana.

He tried to picture Rambam and Rashi duking

it out. Blessed be their memories!

After much consternation he decided

that the intention was most important.

In his heart, he wanted a beautiful Sabbath---

it wasn't his fault that he didn't know

how to bake. And so the boys broke bread.

That night Observant dreamt of pigs.

They flew above his house and landed

on his roof. He could hear their clipped

hooves. They sounded like percussive

dancers. At school, one hid under his desk

and fell asleep on his lap.

Secular and Son of a Shiksa passed notes

back and forth that said pig fucker accompanied

by obscene drawings. At lunch the pig took

a bite of Observant's sandwich. Observant

looked down at the pig. It looked too smug

to be a pig, but when he went to chastise

the pig, it was gone. He wondered if he was hallucinating.

Dirty hippies! he exclaimed. Twenty eyes looked at him.

Damn it, thought Observant. I've just spoken

Lashon Hora aloud. And you said damn it.

He looked down at his feet. It was the pig

and he looked more smug than before.

He bent over to pick it up, but the pig squealed

and trotted out of the cafeteria. Observant turned

towards the eyes. Did you see that? But they were

too busy laughing at Secular's obscene gestures.

Dude, that's so fucking treif, said Son of a Shiksa.

All the kids pointed at Observant shrieking Treif!

Treif! Treif! until the pig jubilantly returned

to Observant's lap. And so it came to pass

that wherever Observant went, Treif was sure

to go.

It was now difficult for Observant to stop

thinking about Treif. When he was eating

or when he was studying, he wondered

what Treif was thinking. Sometimes he

even wondered what Treif tasted like.

He burrowed his nose into the hairs

on her back. Before Treif had come along

he never thought about it. Treif's hairs

prickled. She knew something was different.

Something wasn't kosher.

Observant got up and went to the kitchen.

Treif landed on her tail and used it as a spring

and set herself upright. She tried to remember

the  prayer for getting up, but couldn't.

She cast her eyes down and wondered how much

of this was in her hands, how much in his or if

this was G-d or some other force like a secular

Midwestern narrator who happened to reach into

the cookie jar of Talmud. She wondered how fair

this was for any of them, herself, Observant, G-d,

the narrator, or even Secular or Son of a Shiksa or

the Reconstructionist pot smoking challah makers.

Treif went out to her pen. She was smart

enough not to goin the kitchen. It had rained

and she rolled and rolled around in her own peshat.

Carly Sachs has an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School University. She has taught creative writing at George Washington University among other places. Her book of poems, the steam sequence won the 2006 Washington Writers' Publishing House first book prize, and she is the editor of the anthology of poems, the why and later, (deep cleveland press, 2007). Currently, she is an Arts Fellow at The Drisha Institute.

Her blog may be viewed at: fivefeetabovewater.blogspot.com