after Chen Chen

With a side of pickles. Without a Bar Mitzvah. With

a Mother and Father. With one matzoh ball or two?

With chocolate babka and gelt. Without friends

to haggle over winnings. With accented yentas,

their 80s hair sprayed into place like a helmet.

Without a yarmulke. With a Jewish name and

nose, glasses (if you count these things) Jewish,

too. Without feeling able to pass, as if shame and

betrayal could read the ignorance of an eight year

old boy. With latkes. With applesauce and sour cream.

With the guilt of “Are you Jewish?” With every guess

and check calculus problem approaching but never

touching the line. Without a limit. With a daughter

who has questions. Am I Jewish? Without answers.

Would Hitler come for us? Without wanting answers.

With salty lox on an everything bagel. With Ancestry

percentages helixed like black drapes over a mirror, 

a dark map, the allure of the shtetl. With Yiddish consonants

that taste like a memory of refuge. With refugee stories,

pogroms passed out like challah. Where are we from?

With burnt wood swirling our nostrils. With love. Without

belonging. With love. Who are we? With love, a new start,

my daughter. I’ll have what she’s having. With love.