Besides
His name tastes like strawberries and popping candy
Feels like warmth and vermillion
And it’s funny just how much young queer jewish love grows roots in cultural trauma,

in genocide,

in threadbare family trees
In hallways and behind locked doors and in the hollows of hip-bones and clavicles
But darling you,
You are star-forged, not star-crossed and besides
We, our people, have never put too much stock in what the stars have to say about us anyway

We are lilies in sidewalk cracks
And the way ivy tumbles castles
How the candlelight reflects in your hazel eyes
And the kiddush does not quaver on my tongue
May God make you like David, like Yehonatan, like Devorah, like Reish Lakish, like Ruth, like Naomi,
My darling
You feel like home
And hope