A familiar face emerges,
bulging black bag slung over his shoulder.
I remember him from the 6:15am morning prayer service
a decade earlier, before I married and fled Brooklyn.
The heavy oak door closes me inside with my Rebbe.
I have tied my minutes and hours to raising souls, I whisper.
And what time is left for me?
The man returns with a rake
and climbs into the soaking torn letters, knee deep.
He gathers thousands of pleas for healing
that conceal a bed of glistening white rocks.
How much does G-d pay a man
to stuff prayers into a sack and bury them?