Shiksa

by Cheryl Savageau (Boston, MA)

…for Aunt Molly

she said I was 

a shiksa but

she didn’t 

hold it 

against me 

once she knew 

I played poker

You have a cat?

I wouldn’t

eat in your kitchen

who asked you?

I said and threw 

a quarter into the kitty

she ordered the 

old beaver jacket

off my back

took apart the dry skins 

and brought them 

back to life

stitched a new

lining complete

with monogram

I listened to her 

stories of strikes

in the garment district

as she dealt another hand

we’re not supposed to play

poker on Passover

but we’re waiting for dessert

and cards are flying

like the stories she tells

of sisters who fled

the pogroms

walked to the Black Sea

and took a boat to America

I am the shiksa 

who learned to love 

her red horseradish 

and the crystal dish

that held it, the one

on my Pesach table 

the crystal dish

filled now

with red beets 

and bitter root

Cheryl Savageau is a convert and also Native (Abenaki), and her poems are about her first experience as part of a Jewish family, and how she became part of the Jewish people. She has three collections of poetry: Mother/Land (SALT 2006), Dirt Road Home (Curbstone Press 1995), and Home Country (Alice James, 1992).  Her memoir, Out of the Crazywoods, was published in 2020, and her children’s book, Muskrat Will Be Swimming, was first published by Northland in 1996, then in paperback in 2006. This poem is part of a new collection, New Love/Old Love, looking for a publisher. Visit her website to learn more about her life and work: https://cherylsavageaublog.wordpress.com/