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For Jews, the Cossacks are always coming.
Therefore I think the sun spot on my arm
is melanoma. Therefore I celebrate
New Year’s Eve by counting
my annual dead.
My mother, when she was dying…
She was still upset,
she wanted to tell me,
she kept remembering
his terrible hands:
how she came, a young girl
of seventeen, a freckled
fairskinned Jew from Kovno
to Hamburg with her uncle
and…
And veins web her temples,
and my father pins on the orchid,
and my card names her the best mother.
But Alzheimer’s or arteriosclerosis (the end is the same)
praises him ad nauseum,
but accuses my…
Verse 1Sadie Cohen left her happy homeTo become an actress lady,On the stage she soon became the rage,As the only real Salomy baby.When she came to town, her sweetheart MoseBrought for her around a…
On the holiest day we fast till sundown.
I watch the sun stand still
as the horizon edges towards it. Four hours to go.
The rabbi’s mouth opens and closes and opens.
I think: fish
and little steaming…
I’m trying to pray; one of the voices of my mind says, “God, please help me do this,”
but another voice intervenes: “How conceive God’s interest would be to help you believe?”
Is this prayer? Might…
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall”
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You used to…
When I came back, he was gone.
My mother was in the bathroom
crying, my sister in her crib
restless but asleep. The sun
was shining in the bay window,
the grass had just been cut.
No one mentioned…
convicted, with her husband,
of “conspiracy to commit
espionage”; killed in the
electric chair June 19, 1953
I won’t be around forever, Mother said.
One day I’m going to die, so I might
as well nag you a little bit more,
while I have the chance. And when
I’m dead you’ll have to rely on someone else
to tell…