Love requires preparation; not always
does it strike like a thunderbolt; not always
does a path open in the wilderness;
nor is it always a snare and a device.
Love requires cleansing, a self-review,
an accounting of the soul. Love opens
gates made rusty through neglect.
Love excavates channels made musty
with stagnant damp, and cracks open
and dissolves calcified blockages.
Love evaporates concealing mist,
revealing fresh growth never discerned before.
But love requires this preparation —
young man, young woman —
and if your limbs are rigid and cold,
your joints stuck and creaky,
your glands unused to secreting
sweat and lubricant, your organs
to pumping warm blood, warm sperm —
you must “sanctify yourself
with what is permitted,”
as the Talmud says, and
as the rabbis say, or ought to,
imagine that an angel is coaxing you.
