It’s Time for a Rewrite – A poem for Parsha Bechukotai (Aliyah 4)

These poems are offered free for your enjoyment. If you use them as part of an event, meeting, educational or liturgical setting, please consider tipping the author.

Share this poem:

. . . the value of a male shall be twenty shekels, while that of a female shall be ten shekels;

There are a thousand poems to write
about how all the genders should be
priced equally.

There are a thousand more to write
about why not to put a monetary value
on any human.

I thought someone else had written
these poems already. I’m sure I
read some of them.

It’s time to rewrite who gets what
until all the lines look the same.
Can you believe, in the news

men are deciding what will happen
with women? I could swear these battles
were won when Y2k came along.

Don’t we have bigger things to worry about?
Has anyone noticed the earth is melting?
Some countries have taken it

upon themselves to take other countries.
A man just walked into a Buffalo supermarket
to kill black people…and that wasn’t his whole plan.

There are children dead in Texas.
Killed by a man who was barely no longer a child
thanks to guns as easy as vending machine snacks.

How are we still focused on separating people
who have unique, identifying characteristics?
Women are worth all my shekels.

When the glass ceiling is forged in
ancient text, it’s time to take up our pens.
(You can type if you’re more comfortable.)

This rewriting – It’s overdue.

These poems are offered free for your enjoyment. If you use them as part of an event, meeting, educational or liturgical setting, please consider tipping the author.

Share this poem: