by Annette Friend
I tell my mother
my honest truth
edged with blades
from a teenage
tongue that knows
only a pinch of the life
my mother suffered.
I am blinded by
my good fortune,
sheltered behind the veil
of my birth here in America
not the streets of the shtetel
in Poland where she grew up,
facing famines and pogroms,
the horrors of World War I,
Russian soldiers pillaging
her small village, friends, family,
when they invaded.
I listen, but don’t hear
the sad stories she tells me,
surrounded by the glow of America
even if the streets she found
weren’t paved with gold.
I scream, I will date whom I choose,
a handsome Italian-Catholic boy
who looks like Paul McCartney
What does my mother know?
This is a new world.
I cut her to the quick
with my sharp knifed words,
standing here well-fed
and clothed in freedom,
instead of buried
in an unmarked green grave
of the Poland she left
now almost Judenfrei
free of Jews as Hitler wanted,
only because of her courage
to book passage in steerage
at sixteen.
Annette Friend, a retired occupational therapist and elementary school teacher, taught both Hebrew and Judaica to a wide range of students. In 2008, she was honored as the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Jewish Educator of the Year from San Diego. Her work has been published in The California Quarterly, Tidepools, Summation, The San Diego Poetry Annual, The Jewish Writing Project, and the Paterson Literary Review. In August 2025, Annette along with artist Judy Langhoff published a book of ekphrastic poetry and paintings titled Pen and Brush: In Contemplation. She was honored to be chosen for third prize for her poem, “The Salvation of Books, Newark, N.J., 1959” in the 2026 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards.
Wonderful poem! Rebellion turned confession, turned courage. Not until later in life do we gain appreciation for our parents or grandparents journey. Sadly, it may be too late to ask.
Thank you Annette ❤️
You certainly were not alone — many of us were selfish and/or short-sighted as teens, not appreciating the enormous sacrifices our parents, grandparents, and others made to prove us with a life of comfort and safety. Your poem is beautifully crafted.
What an exquisite, profound, introspective poem! Any Jewish child of immigrant parents or grandparents could relate to this specific kind of Jewish guilt: the kind that lingers from words snapped by privileged kids who hadn’t yet grown up enough to notice how much they took for granted , how little they understood about their own family history, and how much their parents or grandparents sacrificed so that the first- or second-generation American descendants could thrive. I will definitely share this memorable poem, maybe even use it to prompt my writing students!
I hope writing this exquisite poem helps you let go of some of your sadness. Many who come from immigrant families can relate.
You are not alone in this experience and regret.
Your mother would be proud of you for this poem.
Beautiful. And yet oh, how I wish any of my grandparents had even wanted to tell sad stories…