Passing the Bar 


This is the greatest moment of my thirteen years of life. 
So it began, though I can’t remember how it ended:
my Bar Mitzvah speech had something to do with going 
into the land of milk and honey (my father wrote it).
He coached me well on its delivery, when to pause, 
when to raise and lower my voice, and when to stop 
altogether, looking slowly up for what he termed 
the palpable pause. If I did anything well in that speech 
it was at those moments, peering out from my yarmulke
with marbled eyes, tilting my head a bit sideways, 
ever-pressing the envelope of suspenseful melodrama. 
Afterwards, following much hoopla, my rabbi explained 
I had omitted two lines from a key prayer, henceforth 
casting my manhood precariously in the balance. 



​

Breakfast Chat


She spoke of the holocaust
in the same way she spoke of making eggs.
Pulling back the veil only once for me
as I waited on a wooden chair in the corner
of her kitchen, the smell of rich butter 
wafting my way, thickly intoxicating.
The eggs were moist and barely cooked.
Henry mumbled Hebrew idioms 
intermittently as she explained it to me.
When she finally sat down, I learned 
how many had died, and how they died.