devotion

a boy at synagogue has made an unusual habit
of waiting for the pews to empty before he puts on
his tefillin. maybe it’s delayed gratification
or maybe he actually prefers to be alone when he’s praying
with all that leather bondage, strapping the tefillin
around his arm until he purples. quietly, a few mothers
express concern about his relationship with God. how it’s
always been a toxic, all-consuming thing. how God,
Herself, only reappears in the boy’s life when it’s convenient,
when She feels like it. Her fingers under his chin
through the open window. the obsidian sky behind Her,
velvet and throne-like, packed with centuries of glitter.
forget everything you were before me, She tells him.
give me everything, down to your soul.
God is a woman who listens to hymns and chappell
roan mixtapes as She splits the sea in a top-down
convertible. She wears a designer moto jacket made
of sacrificial lamb-leather and calls boys “darling” or “baby girl”
after breaking them in with Her 613 commandments.
She snakes Her devilishly long fingernails around the apple
of their hearts with a vice-grip. at night, the dark castle
of the synagogue. the shadows ghosting through
the lace partition. the dead roses withering on the table.
the black and white film of it. the theatrics. the creaking porch.
the way he’s playing with fire as he pushes open the door
with a timid glance in either direction. he’d been fighting
against the idea of meeting Her again. didn’t want to make it
too easy or meaningless when he finally gave in. tears running
down the fine-china of his cheekbones as he unravels
the leather rope and begins his ceremony of devotion
like a good, pious boy. a boy so pretty when he cries
that no one could possibly stay mad at him.
not even God, Herself.