the kohen shall quarantine him for seven days.
I’ve been at home for five weeks
mostly sitting in this same office chair.
My exercise consists of long walks to
the bathroom and meager weights at night.
I overheard someone in a poem recently say
To heck with birds. I’m not sure why that
resonates with me today, as the outside
becomes a memory. As my car doesn’t
remember what it’s like to be on.
As the delivery people I know by name
now ring the doorbell and flee before
I have the chance to thank them for their service.
As the seven day quarantines mandated in
this week’s Torah portion seem so quaint.
We used to dream of quarantines that
lasted only seven days. When all we had
to worry about were spots on our skin
and the occasional discolored hair.
When the priest’s job was to behave like
a doctor, and that examination was holy.
Now there is nothing on my skin and
all my hairs are the color they are supposed to be.
Even the grey ones are giving me a
comforting thumbs up.
When this is all over, the ritual bath I’ll take
will last seven days. I’ll send photos to the past
to gain priestly assurances. I’ll never
not leave the house again.
Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 23 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “Hunka Hunka Howdee!” (Poems written in Memphis, Nashville, and Louisville – Ain’t Got No Press, May 2019) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.