dead sea scrolls
I was like the words
on a papyrus apocryphon
buried in a cave at Qumran,
and you were the scholar
I had been waiting for
all my life, the one reader
who unraveled the scrolls
and understood the language
and deciphered its mysteries.
a treatise on ecstasy
Touching your body
I was like a rabbi pouring
over a treatise on ecstasy,
the message hidden in the scrolls.
I remember our delirium
as my fingers moved backwards
across the page, letter by letter,
word by word, sentence by sentence.
I was a devoted scholar
patiently tracing the secret
passages of a mysterious text.
Our room became a holy place
as my hands trembled
and my voice shook
when I recited the blessings
of a book that burst into flames.