Apart Together

To lie down like a million-odd before me
beside a million certain like you—
to feel new again, though our bed has caved
and we have grayed from first sight.
I want to need it still,
as there must be someone who needs to watch
the seedling’s slow rise into poplar,
the continents slide apart
only to join on the other side.
And, I want one part of me to rest on this shore
and another to lock into you—
almost a deity who can be
one and many,
yet only a man,
nothing more
than yours.

“Apart Together” appeared in “Dry Nectars of Plenty” (Headwaters Press, 2002), which co-won BigCitLit’s Chapbook contest. Baruch November founded an organization to cultivate the arts called Jewish Advocacy for Culture & Knowledge, and teaches creative writing and literature at Touro College in New York.