Short “Cuts” — A poem for Torah Portion Ki Teitzei

You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.
-Deuteronomy 22:10

Oxen and donkeys
plowing together
mass hysteria!

You shall not wear a mixture of wool and linen together.
-Deuteronomy 22:11

The people who invented
poly-cotton blends are
turning over in their
Jewish spindles.

If a man takes a wife, is intimate with her and despises her…
-Deuteronomy 22:13

Any words that could
follow these words, and
I mean any words are
not the words you want.

If you have arrived in a situation
where you, of any gender,
want to say these first words
you did not put the right amount
of thought or heart into the
time leading up to this moment.

Do better.
Your heart
and their heart
deserve it.

[A man] with injured testicles or whose member is cut,
may not enter the assembly of the Lord.
-Deuteronomy 23:2

Well that’s one way of
getting out of having
to go to services.

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.