Richard Chess's first book of poems, Tekiah, will be published this fall by the University of Georgia Press. He has published poems and essays in Poetry, The American Poetry Review, The Massachusetts Review, Tikkun, and other journals. "Tzimtzum" was composed for a "blessing way," or pre-birth ceremony, for Debi Miles and Marc Rudow, whose third son, Dovid, was born on Rosh Hashanah, 1992.