The bulbous neck and pacified stare
twist off broad haunches of gold.
Its hooves tear at the pedestal below.
And it is because the chance is so rare
to look upon a god’s face,
even of shofars, even of melted tefillin and jewelry,
all the keepsakes that were carried
through desert purgation. Nothing
but silent landscape and prayer.

The splintered axle of our machine
breathing kicks and lurches darkly.
It brays in the shuddering trap
of twilight. And we are alone
clenching through the fire and the cold
as some human disease remands us,
tossing us into unremitting folds
of sand and salt and blood
in a mute landscape made vast

by tufts of sallow grass
low and sheathed in the wind.
Speech dries up like a cistern
at the first uncertain taste.
The heart, and whatever mystery,
hardens in its mold.
Back and forth through the camp.
Brother and friend and neighbor.
And you must not bow.

Original appearance in Little Star.