by Casualene Meyer
At the Western Wall Emah scrawls my name on parchments in a hand only the Divine can read— forces them between the Herodian stones as Abbah knocks at the wall with rhythmic swaying of orthodox prayer, wafts currents of words against the stones, hopes a door will open to his faint and fervent tapping without touching. And far from Jerusalem I hear Shoshana pray: her tongue touches, taps, and glides along the magic places of her mouth that mold sound into meaning, that send a shaft of words beyond the limestone margins of night and day— eyes closed, I burrow behind the blackness of her words, black ink on black, waiting for another phrase waiting for any word but Amen.
