To some, it is a burden—
a bomb on my back:
a longing, a desire
made illicit in Vayikra.
Eyes watch as if it might explode
as I stroll the length of Nahalat Binyamin
in shorts too short for Rabbis
too long for the muscle men of Shpagat
At school, they told me to change it
get a sports bag like the other boys
so I looked the same as them
so I could at least appear normali.
They made me hate the weight of it –
caused it to cling to me like guilt,
to become a thing I thought must be buried
by correct posture and layers of shame.
Now, I unzip it each morning
like unwrapping a Hanukkah gift.
Inside: the guy I first kissed on a stairwell,
the musika we made together,
the shapes our bodies still make.
Let them call it sakana,
As they search my body
like airport security hunting
for hafatzim assurim, for a neshek
hidden beneath my ribs.
They’ll find only nigunim,
ancient melodies spun into being.
They’ll find simkha
coiled like a spring,
waiting to burst
into something beautiful.
