Legend concerns the animation of uniformed matter (which is what the Hebrew word golem means) … [and] the most famous golem is Rabbi Loew’s giant servant made from mud of the [river] Vitava, who was brought to life when the rabbi placed a shem [magical scroll] inside the clay …”
— from, The Rough Guide to Prague, page 101.

In the end, being
nothing more than
river clay, she left
dirty teeth marks
each night across
my neck and
fingers. Clothes
shopping was
a nightmare.
Food bored her.
Often I found
her laying on
her bed, moodily
playing with
her shem.

Her eyes,
the same sludge gray
that they drudged her
up from, held all
the cosmos, twigs,
a drowned squirrel.

Once she said that she
wished to see a heart
break, “Or a bone!”
looking eagerly at my
hand. “Don’t worry, it
can be a small one.”
But it was the warmth
that ran wild in me that
she couldn’t believe.
Tracing a fingernail
across each injury
she’d left fascinated
her. “Purple means
love,” she marveled,
watching all my bruises
change colors the way
the earth changes
with the sky, seasons
and clouds; reflecting
back everything; fading
back into what it once
was; the earth once
again reclaiming all
it had ever created.