The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Open the Fist by Elya Braden

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Yom Kippur

Fall tracks footprints
               through rooms too small and numbered,
               floors shouting up naked stairs or down.

We choose our substitutions:
               the faces we hold between our hands
               and kiss with eyes made wide.

The trees shed leaves like green tears.
               Ragged footsteps hurried on the way
               to some bright elevation,

another path to love or to the illusion
               of a mountaintop where breath is deeper,
               hope blooms in a purple crocus.

Everyone’s cold. Wine leaks
               from a cracked glass. Fasting promises
               a God who has abandoned me. 

I’ll bow through days of awe.
               The pendulum swings. I pray
               that someone, somewhere can hear.

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