Hello 1919
Room Magazine, Canada, 2021
Hello 1919, this is 2020.
It’s summer and I sleep
in the nude. No one wears
a mask in my dreams,
not even the dead who
lounge in windowless
rooms socializing.
Every night I wake
to feed the cats.
When I return
the dream continues
uninterrupted.
I’m not afraid
to touch anything.
I cut my own hair
and toenails. Now
they’re designing
new clocks for us,
changing the increments
daily according to the rate
of infection. Last year
I made a checklist
of places I’d most
like to visit—Winnipeg
and Cotopaxi, my
ancestors’ path,
and the Methuselah
tree in the Inyo forest.
This year I wish only
for a happy return.
Hope you are
staying safe.
Featured poet in Cultural Weekly.
2015 Pushcart nomination for "Our Aquarium."
Poem "Battle Dressings"
in *82 Review Issue 2.2 (Spring 2014)
Three poems in This Assignment is So Gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013). ALA-honored anthology, Lambda Literary Finalist
Short story "Oh My Godzilla" published in the anthology, Mentsh, On Being Jewish and Queer (Alyson Books, 2004.)
Multimedia
"Unrehearsed," a video poem, 2021
"Talking Ban," a video poem
Blood-Jet Radio Hour with Rachelle Cruz, Episode #105, featuring Megan Volpert and poems by This Assignment is So Gay contributors Bonnie S. Kaplan and Douglas Ray
"All Access Pass" (video), an original essay performed at The Santa Monica Playhouse (2009)
A Manzanita Yad
Sinister Wisdom, 2021
I once whittled a yad from a fallen twig
of the manzanita bush, only I didn’t
think it yad at the time.
As with most whittling I did not know
where I was headed. One end of the sprig
was forked, evidence of branching,
and on the other I carved a single
claw, a talon really, which tipped it
into the magical, a sorcerer’s stick.
Manzanita has a natural patina
as it grows in nature and needs little
polishing, yet I sat for many
hours burnishing with a stone,
adding my own wear and shine
to an already tough and ruddy grain.
Torah and Hebrew were the farthest
thing from my mind that day in the forest,
yet something sacred was afoot.
I thought my twig a bird’s perch,
a decorative fetish, not a Jewish ritual
pointer. But that is so like Judaism,
to prepare you in ways dictated
by a mystery, whispering hold on,
you will need this one day.
Selected Work