Abraham, says Deleuze,
could only become a Jew
by first being a goy

Inside every pintele yid
is a Pinteresting Gentile.
And inside every Gentile

is a unique ignorance
of the Midrash
that the Torah was given to everyone.
*
I have studied the yud-shaped pool of blood
like an exhausted hunter sniffing out the air for some lentils.

I have adorned myself with Bilaam’s staff infection, and the lines on my face
record the litany of psalms I have struggled
to compose
lisping, tongue-numb from the frost of imagined taiga.
...