bit’hila

חַכְמוֹת נָשִים

Let us praise now
this one woman’s body, how
it crackles and jerks, more lumber
than stride, how these two upper arms sling
pounds of loose flesh, how this face decades past
puberty and years past periods still sprouts pimples and
blackheads and little red dots that seem to have no names of
their own. How the weight it carries keeps her face full and soft and smooth,
so few wrinkles beyond the worry furrows of a forehead inherited from her father how years
of honorable dyke laughing have insured against lines from frowns yielded as weapons by
those women who forced fake smiles at the hest of imperious men.

בָּנְתָה בֵיתָהּ

Let us now praise praise because praise
is the hardest-won right.

בֹּאוּ שְעָרֵיהָ

Let us praise now these calves in their cellulite glory, these fingers so slight they startle, these toes, one bent already by arthritis and both littlest ones crooked from speeding
on roller skates or bikes, these thin blue veins exposed and throbbing
at the wrists, this mole at base of the back of the right hand,
this mole every doctor has wanted to remove,
this mole from which I learned to defend my body
as it is from those who pry and cut, this mole
without I would not know
left from right.

בְּתוֹדָה

Can you praise that which you do not love? Can you build a gateway
of praise and throw open wide its doors? Can you build of a desire to praise even when
you cannot yet praise a courtyard whose hard-packed earth glistens with the shining
of Wissahickon schist?

חַצֵרֹתֵיהָ בִּתְהִלָה

Let us now praise this woman’s body because the wisdom
of this woman’s body knows how to live with dirt for a floor and knows how
to open gates and knows how to live as if worthy of praise, as if praise
were a birthright and not a commandment.

To enter into the body of god

נְבָרֵך אֶת עֵן הַחַיִים

To enter into the body of god
is what sex wants to be, all that clanging
and need           all that wanting
to know everything knowable through the electric charge
leaping between skin and skin           that single second
everything knowable is your kin is
an entire universe           without strangers

מְקוֹר הַשְׁלֵמוּת וְהַתֹּהוּ

to enter           to enter            to enter into where
there is no exit            no going back            to turn and turn and turn again
but never to be turned around            never to be turned off            never
to be turned down            in the heart of the body of god is a room
with 1000 doors and all of them are yes and while half are locked
there waits a key with your name and all you have to do
is want

מְקוֹר הַטּוֹב וְהָרָע

It has been imagined that the body of god must be a mountain
or ocean or cave as ancient as rock            but I tell you now            the only way in
is the desire rocking the dreams you have            when you aren’t stopping yourself
when you aren’t asleep but are awake Oh! awake            when you face
the solid rock of your life and desire a door and one appears           its shape
the very shape of the body of god that only you
could invoke

מְקוֹר כָּל יְצִירָה