Author: taylor mardis katz

Yom Kippur

We sin against you when we sin against ourselves.
For the sins committed against you:

For believing in superficialities.
For moving so far away.
For garrulousness.
For forgetting to tip.
For committing to what I knew I might cancel.
For not leaving enough time for the love at home.
For not calling when he died.
For not calling.
For hating to vacuum (for not vacuuming).
For not correcting assumptions.
For misremembering summer birthdays.
For unrealistic expectations made up in dreams.
For hoping what I give out will be returned to me.
For relying on someone else to do it because they always do.
For losing track of the line between humor and cruelty.
For grabbing onto the less-than-perfect parts and tugging.
For interrupting.
For gossiping out of boredom, or worse, out of need.
For stealing food and books.
For painting the picture all rosy.
For too much truth-telling at once.
For liking you less with a new haircut.
For piling myself all over the house.
For needing more than one.
For scoffing.
For enjoying adoration.
For not wanting to share.
For being aware of amounts.
For misinterpreting, and liking my version better.
For believing even the smallest of my sentiments deserves to be heard.
For being more honest with strangers than with those closest to me.
For not expressing my gratitude to those who deserve it most.

For all of these sins: forgive me, pardon me, grant me forgiveness.

Notes From A Pioneer On A Speck In Space

Few things that grow here poison us.
Most of the animals are small.
Those big enough to kill us do it in a way
Easy to understand, easy to defend against.
The air, here, is just what the blood needs.
We don’t use helmets or special suits.

The Star, here, doesn’t burn you if you
Stay outside as much as you should.
The worst of our winters is bearable.
Water, both salt and sweet, is everywhere.
The things that live in it are easily gathered.
Mostly, you can eat them raw with safety and pleasure.

Yesterday my wife and I brought back
Shells, driftwood, stones, and other curiosities
Found on the beach of the immense
Fresh-water sea we live by.
She was all excited by a slender white stone which:
“Exactly fits the hand!”

I couldn’t share her wonder:
Here, almost everything does.

Sonnet’s Antonym

Some days I might as well drive alone; you’d
frighten at a crash, but nothing less. Or:
everything less. On days like these I could
ride toothless, slugged, hoodwild, skin leaking from
burst buttons; I could moan in Russian, wrench
a gull through the windshield, eat my right wrist
with hot sauce. And you would signal right, check
mirrors, obey signage. We arrive at
the cliffs where spray meets your sideburns like a
sentence. Me: Look at that stone; how’s your toe
-nail; remember pogs? Hand on your back to
leave behind some cells, though your shirtheat spurns
me like you with a towel, seaside: Why
does the sand always have to land on mine?

42

I am in love, hence free to live
by heart, to ad-lib as I caress.
A soul is light when full,
heavy when vacuous.
My soul is light. She is not afraid
to dance the agony alone,
for I was born wearing your shirt,
will come from the dead with that shirt on.

Thinking of you,
watering the dirt
where your venus flytrap once grew.

Thinking of you,
pushing aside the heat
hair builds upon your forehead.

Thinking of you,
kneesocked
and saying your goodbyes.

Thinking of you,
with the little mug
refilled.

Thinking of you,
planting eyeglasses
at the riverbank.

Thinking of you,
on a bicycle
amid all those impractical shoes.

Thinking of you,
snipping the dreadlock
from the back of your head.

Thinking of you,
scooping the last curls of tea
from the tin.

Thinking of you,
moving straight-backed
down your street.

Thinking of you,
finally dismissing
the parentheses—

3. Teeth

Out of my desire to be

related to my sleek young dog, I ate

her puppy teeth, all of them I could find, white and

crisp, each one rolled in a

pad of bread. I was not, consequently,

related to her. But I say this:

in any life some failures are nevertheless

achievements, and this one, in mine, is by no means

the least. God help us if

we make this world only out of bone, and not the greater weight

of admiration, whimsy,

somehow i cant figure itout fierce and unspeakable love.