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Talia
Back From College
She
sleeps and her hair flows
off the pillow like a stream of honey.
Wet socks slop the floor
and shampoo splatters bathroom tile.
The whole house breathes with her.
Sunday evening in the kitchen
she ransacks cupboards, freezer
and fridge, takes anything she wants.
Before she says goodbye,
we stand out front, arm in arm
as a house wren bathes in the birdbath,
shakes off, drinks, bathes, shakes off,
then flies to a wire.
published in Main Street Rag (2008)
Yom
Kippur
I
The
Day of Atonement meant no food,
no water, no talking, either. Always
the hottest day in our Conservative synagogue
where Cantor Goodfriend chanted Hebrew prayers.
My sister and I played silent finger games
between all the standing and bowing. I was afraid
to go to the bathroom and miss the moment
God was forgiving me. I needed it
for all my bad words, fights on the playground,
squinting my eyes in anger at my mom.
Mid afternoon, we drove to the Orthodox shul,
where my grandma stood behind
a curtain with Mrs. Gross and Tanta Lena,
the two Rose Friedmans, all of them
pounding their chests in prayer. Old women
with accents and cracked voices davening
in that suffocating room, casting their sins away.
I tried to go with my brother to the other side
where men could pray without the distraction
of women’s shapes, where I could watch
the Torah come out of the ark and down the aisle.
But my grandma tucked me behind her skirt
and continued to shuckle and chant.
Seven yahrzeit candles lit her home
for two husbands dead by heart attack and stroke,
her father killed in Romania,
mother and sister at Auschwitz,
a friend with no family and one for all
the holocaust victims. Zachar, to remember.
Kosher wine and honey cake awaited
her long walk home in shoes that hurt her feet.
She dared not ride on Yom Kippur or turn
on lights, lift the phone. From sunset to sunset
nothing was permitted but prayer.
II
Yom Kippur became a ritual fast,
a day of reflection, a time to set goals,
but I wanted no part in temple.
Temple was for the obedient daughter.
God would have to find me on the street.
But today I come to synagogue so my daughter
and converted husband will understand
what it means to be a Jew.
I open my prayer book, chant in unison
the litany of sins we all commit,
asking for an empty slate.
The hardest one to forgive is myself.
I have my beating stick and my wicked tongue.
Tomorrow no one in this room will be hungry.
But today I will forgive and be forgiven
because I am a Jew,
and when the shofar blows,
I will break my fast with cake and wine
and dip apples into honey for a sweet New Year.
forthcoming
in the Red Hen Press teaching anthology
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