Parah Adumah

In the fields, the red heifer hangs her dour head.
Rusty wire wool back has never known the yoke
and smells of straw.
You can do atonement better than me
who got drunk on Good Friday;
a prosaic catholicness of choreographed penance
decanted on beads, drip by drip.

I wonder if time without touch will hurt you.
The earthy reassurance of breath
gone like the hours after school
when father scooped us in the chuckle of his arms.
The slow thump of your heart echoes
around wet walls of your calf-less womb.
When you are ashes, the sweet hyssop and scarlet smoke
will do no good.

It is a strange god who demands sacrifice;
a stranger one who gives mercy.