Shalom Aleichem

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).