I Challenge You to be Like Some People I Love

Tomorrow at the grocery store,

buy a gallon of goldfish and

eat them in one sitting.

Lift

over 300 lbs.

over your head.

Take Adderall, do a few lines,

pop some molly, play guitar all night,

and record something scintillating.

Have a severe anxiety disorder

since childhood, do well in school,

and make plenty of friends.

Be gay.

Don’t tell anyone for 22 years.

Tell your closest friends one night.

Teach high school kids, grade papers every night,

coach their cross country team, and train

to run a marathon under 3 hours.

Continue to pay your student loans off, work, live
with your parents, and when one of your friends says they need $100,

give it to them, no questions asked.

Raise two daughters well,

be good to your spouse, support them, and

still make time for your friends.

Rabbi

My parents still dream that I will be a rabbi,
although it's been years since I last belived
in God. Like an optical illusion, one of those
rabbit-to-duck transformations, I one day decided
that my prayers were to nothing, the tradition

empty. My parents refuse to believe me,
interpret my atheism as a mistranslation
of my inner voice of God, respond
to my too-eager insistence with smiles
of understanding which prove they don't understand

Light

In my Sunday afternoon tutoring session,

I explain to my student the text we just read
about how there is no twilight on the moon.
It says that light holds onto the air,
and because there is no air in space,
there is no transition between day and night;
between light and darkness. And I’m just
thinking back to the morning:
about the lesson plan

of your metronome breathing,
the college ruled creases you graffiti
with your head on my pillowcase,
my cheek pressed against your chest
like a sturdy desk in study hall
that opens to reveal all sorts
of hidden galaxies. I point to the text.

“It is as dark as midnight
right after the sun sets,
as bright as midday in the morning.”

And I think about how glad I am
to not live on the moon: to experience the other-
wordliness of waking up
in blankets and embraces
painted by rosy-cheeked skies,
in air that has the ability to hold
onto light at sundown,
and find their way back
to each other in the morning
the way our bodies do.