Yom Kippur 2017

after Yehuda Amichai

On Yom Kippur, 2017, the year of DACA, I put on
my wedding kittel and walked through a city
that was neither old nor young.
For a long time, I stood in front of a poster
of the Old City of Jerusalem that was hanging
from a Chinatown bodega.
Outside Damascus Gate,
I could almost decipher a poet, dismounting
to confess a year’s supply of regrets
to an Arab shopkeeper.
I lifted up my eyes to the corner
where a ram appeared, still and hornless,
afraid of its freedom.
The shop was full of shofars, dangling from the ceiling.
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