I’ll Stop the World and Melt With You

Same story every year.

The rich man

A big sinner

The pious rabbi

Alone in his study.

How can I atone?

We will go to the blacksmith.

Put all your gold in the fire

Melt it down

Dip in a spoon and drink the molten metal.

The rabbi’s shaky hands tie a blindfold around the rich guy’s head.

Are you ready to pay the price for your sins?

A spoonful of marmalade.

New Year’s Buzz

I can not open the honey.

Liquid Nails

That was what they used to lay the linoleum in the breakfast room.

Thus begins this five thousand seven hundred something new year

congealed crud blocking natural sweetener

I wanted it to be another way

That I would have prepared

Brand new jar,

purchased off a beekeeper,

marked with a homemade label

Busy B Farms

or

Natural Buzz

or the best of all, a label-less product,

little bits of honeycomb suspended in light brown goo.

But I worked up to the very last minute.

Blocked out the sound of each morning’s shofar blast,

Opted out of the self-reflection thing altogether.

Should I take a hammer to the thing?

Immerse it in ice water?

Drill a hole in the top with my Black & Decker?

My beloved hands me a floppy circular piece of rubber

I twist

Open up, Gates of Repentance.