The Lost Wallets of My Past – A Poem for Haftarah Tazria-Metzora

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:

A camp empty of people
but full of silver and food

Oh the wallets I’ve left
in public places

how attractive they must
have been to the empty

pocket eyes. What lives
could have changed

save for the honesty
of finders?

Like the four men in
the north. The ones with

the heebie-jeebies on
their skin. They ate their

fill. They hid a portion
but the guilt of famine

led them home to
doubting ears, to acres

of empty stomachs.
A story vetted

The enemy had indeed
left their buildings.

I never considered my
empty wallet a prophecy.

I never considered
finders keepers

losers just accept you’ve
made a difference.

The sounds of
phantom chariots

make me give until
the hungry come home.

This is the trickle down
of my ancestors.