Jerusalem

6 am, on the stairs that lead to the Western Wall Plaza:

Gold and sandstone color the air with their lament -
 The sacred pilgrimages have been defeated by blood's reek,
opaque crimson encrusting corpses that once were encrusted by rubies,
to honor the triumvirate of holidays.

12 pm, in the alley of the Old Square, near the orange tree:

Your eyes mock my fumbling fingers;
your course military green, the color of rotten olives,
meshes with my silver-woven scarf. (Ten shekels!)

From the street, the stench of urine elevates the scent of forgotten dreams.

 12:15, in the abandoned and unlocked apartment, in the building off of the alley:

I immerse myself in you, as my grandmother once immersed in mikvah-waters,
but I find no purity: I bleed into you like a menstruating woman.

6 pm, at the Western Wall:

The not-quite-darkness paints the stones periwinkle;
their brown resembles the autumn leaves I crush with my high-heeled boots.

A quorum of men murmurs a counter-melody to the white prayer notes
that seep out of the walls cracks, like you seeped out of me, that afternoon.

"May His name be blessed forever and ever".

As my fingers fumble against the stones' cold hardness,
I think about you and cry.