There are no cats in olam ha-ba

A sabbath afternoon after shul,
walking lazy figure eights
around the poles in the 68th street station
to kill time.

Deviceless,
Untethered in time or space,
floating underground in humid anonymity,
an analog watch on my wrist ticking silently,
I refuse to feel impatience.

The sense of hurry belongs to the week.
​It has no place in this cathedral in time.

The numbers on the digital timetable
keep growing larger instead of smaller,
so I stop looking at it entirely.

When I arrived here,
ten or ten-thousand minutes ago,
I walked to the end of the platform out of habit,
which means now I'm at the farthest point reachable by foot
(unless you're a mole person),
this sip of solitude just one more blessing among the many.

I am thinking about
how I shouldn't be thinking about when the train will decide to arrive--
just as I try not to think about work
or money
or lashon hara--
on this day reserved for holy rest,
​when I notice a tiny movement in the periphery.

I have lunged and stomped on the creature
before I have even registered what it is,
and when I lift my sparkly sneaker
the bug's blood cries out to me from the ground.

The hypocrisy! Keeping holy the sabbath
with occasional pauses in which to commit tiny murders.
If I were forced to account for my time on earth
at this very moment, I would try to explain:
I have three cats, they are terrible influences.
Frankly it's a wonder I didn't pick up the corpse and eat it.

Avinu malkenu,
deal with us justly
annul all harsh decrees concerning us
but if you can only forgive one of us,
please choose me over the cats.

All of this crosses and uncrosses my mind
as the train still has not decided to come,
and once I am no longer on this platform
I will undoubtedly forget.

How easy it is to forget the dead
and think more pleasant thoughts
like how the leftover challah will make great french toast.
And how difficult to remember
​how quickly the sacred turns profane
in human hands,
under human feet.