Yom Kippur, Taos, New Mexico

I’ve expanded like the swollen door in summer to fit my own dimension. Your loneliness is a letter I read and put away, a daily reminder in the cry of the magpie that I am still capable of inflicting pain at this distance. Like a painting, our talk is dense with description, half-truths, landscapes, phrases layered with a patina over time. When she came into my life I didn’t hesitate. Or is that only how it seems now, looking back? Or is that only how you accuse me, looking back? Long ago, this desert was an inland sea. In the mountains you can still find shells. It’s these strange divagations I’ve come to love: midday sun on pink escarpments; dusk on gray sandstone; toe-and-finger holes along the three hundred and fifty-seven foot climb to Acoma Pueblo, where the spirit of the dead hovers about its earthly home four days, before the prayer sticks drive it away. Today all good Jews collect their crimes like old clothes to be washed and given to the poor. I remember how my father held his father around the shoulders as they walked to the old synagogue in Philadelphia. "We're almost there, Pop," he said. "A few more blocks." I want to tell you that we, too, are almost there, for someone has mapped this autumn field with meaning, and any day October brooding in me, will open to reveal our names—inscribed or absent — among the dry thistles and spent weeds.