The Art of the Deal – A poem for Torah Portion Bo

And also our cattle will go with us;
not a [single] hoof will remain
Exodus 10:26

In the shadow of the darkest dark
moments before the final plague
took the local first-born away

The stuttering spokesperson
stands his ground. His ground which is
our ground. Our ground which is

Holy ground. Our cows are coming home.
We haven’t been released yet but
we’re taking everything with us.

This is non-negotiable.
We’ve been packing boxes since
frogs fell out of the sky.

Our change-of-address forms
are all filled out. We’re experimenting
with changing the paint in the desert.

Does sand even go with cow?
What’s the reception out there?
Will Pharaoh learn how to store grain

for a lack of rainy days?
Will he move to Florida and
will they want him there?

It’s kind of a setup.
The answers are pre-ordained –
A Divine rhetorical.

After this conversation
these two men, the king
the former prince

who used to be brothers
will not stand in the same room
or see each other’s faces 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 25 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 “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express” (Poems written in Japan – Ain’t Got No Press, August 2020) 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.