by Barbara Krasner (Somerset, NJ)
I say hello to you as I drive on the Garden State Parkway
that bisects the cemetery in Newark. I have not been to see you
in years. Visiting Day at the Grove Street Cemetery is only one day
a year, the Sunday between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
You know the local police are there to protect you, but it’s too late.
The cemetery’s already been vandalized many times over.
I like to think only your decaying bodies lie in those caskets.
Your spirit is still flying around, maybe inhabiting someone else.
That while I’m driving, you’re making a brisket or cutting up
onions and carrots for stew or soup. That while I’m driving
you’re thinking about your daughters and grandchildren
Over There, the ones you’ll never get to see again. That
you still refuse to learn English and sometimes
you forget your teeth. I await your Aleichem Shalom.
Barbara Krasner is a New Jersey-based poet whose work has appeared in more than seventy journals, including the Jewish Writing Project, Minyan Magazine, Jewish Literary Journal, Vita Poetica, and Of the Book. Recent books include Insomnia: Poems after Lee Krasner (dancing girl press), The Wanderers: Poems (Shanti Arts), and the forthcoming Memory Collector (Kelsay Books).
The Jewish Writing Project 