Yiddish Lesson

by Barbara Krasner (Somerset, NJ)

Mamashaynele always came with a smile

and a pinch of my cheek, an adoration

of my young self for just being alive.

Let me feel your keppy always came with a kiss

on the forehead, sometimes followed

with You’re hot and the shake-down of thermometer.

Geh shlofen always came with a wave

of the hand toward the stairs, a directive

to clear the room for adult conversation.

We shlepped to the avenue to the five-and-ten,

noshed on bagels hot from Watson’s factory,

shmecked the scallion shmear and nova lox.

We ate a bissel homemade lokshen on Passover,

eggy strips enjoying their chicken soup bath

with constant companions, matzo balls and farfel.

What a punim always came with a shake of the head,

a face only a mother could love, such a shande.

Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a PhD in Holocaust & Genocide Studies (HGS) from Gratz College, where she teaches in the HGS graduate programs. The author of two poetry chapbooks and three novels in verse, her work has appeared in Jewish Literary Journal, Tiferet, Minyan, Jewishfiction.net, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She serves as Director, Mercer County (NJ) Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Education Center.