Under My Skin – A poem for Parsha Tazria

…the kohen shall quarantine him for seven days…And the kohen shall look at it on the seventh day. If it has spread on the skin, the kohen shall pronounce him unclean.
– Leviticus 13:26-27

All the studiers of Torah love it
when Tazria comes along.

We wait all year for its tales of
lesions and quarantine.

When it finally gets here, we don’t know
what to do with ourselves.

Quarantine used to have nothing to do with our
daily lives outside of movies or studies of the past.

Now, thanks to our bougie pandemic lifestyle,
all it takes is a single email from work or school

and we’re stuck home again.
The masks are coming off but all it takes is

one eager variant and the Kohanim will
turn this pandemic right around.

I saw a man not wearing a mask in the market
long before the restriction had faded.

He did not appreciate my shocked eyes.
Stare much he asked.

Risk everyone’s life much I was not
brave enough to answer him.

And then there was the cook at the
local coffeeshop who was, apparently,

too hot to keep his mask on. I watched as
he picked up slices of cheese with his

bare hands and put them on top of eggs.
Too graphic for you? For me too.

(I assure you this was reflected in
the Yelp review.)

That’s Tazria for you. Our annual gift
from the writers of the Torah.

Tazria – It’s not just for spring anymore.
Our ancient priests have never been busier.

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.