And She Sang of Rachmones

Dragging me with you through childhood, shopping
at the pushcarts, the leatherfaced crone
plucking feathers, the smelly man singsonging
"Rags for Sale," pickles in barrels,
and everyone who read, reading
the Jewish Daily Forward--

How I hated them and you, Mama,

for your refusal to put on the American style,
White bread instead of matzoh
or rye, supermarkets with pickles sealed in jars,
the New York Times and precise English,
just like the mothers in our schoolbooks--
how I hated you.

The Yiddish stigma burning
my skin when you spoke, orthodox
greenhorn, hanging on
to the shtetl, the Old Country ways.
Couldn't you see we're American now?

Today in a life smooth
as linoleum and Campbell's tomato soup,
predictable as whitewashed faces
         I search
for your cobblestone voice
      on Friday nights,
light the Shabos candles,
read an English translation of the Forward
         in broken Yiddish--
           rachmones
                        rachmones.
 

*Yiddish/Hebrew words:

rachmones: compassion, particularly of a maternal nature
Jewish Daily Forward: Yidddish newspaper, popular with the immigrant community
matzoh: flat (unleavened) bread of Passover
greenhorn: foreigner, used pejoratively
shtetl: small Jewish village (area assigned to Jews)

                    © Pesha Joyce Gertler

Published in Poetry Seattle, Seattle Times
Published in Strassfeld Calendar