One who wishes to see the beauty of Rabbi Yohanan should bring a brand new silver cup and fill it with the red seeds of the pomegranate and place around its rim a garland of red roses, and let him place it at the place where the sun meets the shade, and that radiance is something like the beauty of Rabbi Yohanan.
—The Babylonian Talmud
Imagine a headpiece
nestled in a drag queen’s hair:
the silver chalice fishbowl-large,
brimming with garnet arils,
glistening as she lip syncs
to Lizzo: the juice ain’t worth the squeeze
if the juice don’t look like this.
The queen’s wig too
must be garnet—like the robe
Rabbi Yohanan wore
to set himself apart
from the righteous and the wicked
at his resurrection—
synthetic strands teased
into flame, cascading
from the rose-rimmed chalice,
ignited by a sun
which hangs still higher
above the queen’s head,
radiating
eighteen thousand lumens
from its nesting place
among the branches of a bonsai
whose roots weave
through the queen’s hair
to uphold all this splendor
as she walks, perfectly erect,
davening only with her hips.