stare at the picture of the doctor on the cover.

Maybe he doesn’t know everything.

How does being good to myself

mean I have to shock my body?

To starve it?

This can’t be the only way.

By now the cover

is creased and dull.

I’m getting tired of it.

I close it, hard, and put it on the shelf.

I am being good to myself.

Post-its

On the wall

in the kitchen

near the window

on the bulletin board

there are yellow Post-its

written in parent handwriting,

like flags from

when life was normal.

Milk,

work at three,

call grandmother,

and somewhere, in the far, far corner

are the words, written by my father,

Wednesday, July 25th, 4 p.m.

and the word Rabbi.

Today.

There is no one to see me take

the Post-it off the board,

no one to know or remember

that this appointment ever existed.

I look at the phone,

willing my father to call at this moment,

tell me to get moving,

but not this time.

No air-and-tear-filled speech

about how his rabbi was good to him,

even after all the bad things

he said he had done as a kid,

getting in fights, being late

to synagogue, and sometimes

even lying to his parents.

He told me that seeing the rabbi,

the gathering of my study papers,

my cassettes, tying my shoes

and combing my hair, the quiet walk,

the silvery touch of the mezuzah

entering the synagogue on my own,

all of it is                         ritual.

Part of my story. Part of my becoming a man.

I hold the Post-it,

alone

in the quiet apartment,

no one to tell me whether

to go or not.

Something, for once, seems up to me,

standing near the apple bowl,

yellow Post-it between my fingers

with the word Rabbi

in felt marker.

I look at the refrigerator.

I think about my father.

I think about my choices.

I think about who I am,

who I want to be.

I think about the beach

and Lisa

and how the world

feels so big sometimes.

If I leave now,

I might make it.

The Visit

I scrawl a note,

attach the Post-it,

so she can see the date.

I spread it on the counter,

Mom, back at 6.

I eat a Slim Jim,

a new Level 2 snack,

lock the door behind me.

The Marina is warm,

fogless in the late

afternoon, and I

pedal slowly

up Divisadero

and into Pacific Heights.

I don’t know the words

by heart,

so I practice

the cadence

of the prayers

with my breath.

The rabbi’s office

below his apartment

is dusty and dark.

I knock until the brass knob

turns, and he pulls me inside.

It smells like old sofas,

like chicken broth and frying pans,

like my uncle’s house

on Long Island.

He asks me if I’m hungry.

I am, but I say no.

I’ve never been here without my father.