Shehecheyanu
Half raisin, half grape holding fast to the vine, we’ve nursed our petty ailments like newborn pups and survived another year. We raise our cups of wine and give thanks for reaching this season, for living long enough to… Read more ›
Category Archives: Jewish Poems
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Joseph the Shrink
I’m sitting across the desk from Dr. Yusef Ben Yakov describing my dream about murdering my brother. He is wearing his alpaca cardigan of many colors. A photo of Portifar’s wife inscribed sorry it didn’t work out sits next to… Read more ›
Never Cross Da Boss
(Lucky Luciano’s version of the Jonah story) Never cross Da Boss. He asks him to go down to Ninevah, set the gang there straight, no rough stuff, just a little par-lay, and Jonah says just kill them all. … Read more ›
Our First New Year Together
The languorous nights of summer are already a distant memory. The chilly mornings tug at us like an insistent suitor begging for a dance You’ve known the bitterness of love gone stale, the plague of war, the awful trembling… Read more ›
Terezin
The Elbe bore away their ashes and scoured clean the streets, the red earth by the fortress soaked up their blood, and they were gone, murdered, starved, deported, remembered only by the tidy baroque buildings groaning beneath their weight, the… Read more ›
Kelly and Rachel
Kelly was fighting Irish all the way, a former choir boy from Troy with close-cropped hair, his mind and body tuned like a fine Italian car. Rachel was , let’s say, to a gentle manner born, a daughter of Israel… Read more ›
The Huipil
I don’t hold with those who think that we’re the Chosen People but the joy of waking by your side has almost made me a believer. Small miracles are woven from quiet moments such as this, each colored strand locked… Read more ›
No Evil Eye
My name is Chaim. It means life. Everyone who drinks makes toasts to me but take my word for it my life has been no picnic, and if it were, God would send a horde of ants as guests. I… Read more ›
A Shayna Maidel
Rivka stumbled into old age with an air of bewilderment as if all the signs on the Concourse were now in foreign script, as if her own body had become a stranger: her olive skin tattooed with ugly brown islands,… Read more ›
Ruach
After the shooting, we waited like expectant parents for your first breath. Unconscious of our presence, you drifted in a galaxy light years away, tethered to your life support of tubes and hose, your head thrown back in deep repose.… Read more ›