My father can only sing in Hebrew,
but I’m too old for singing now.
The living room plays strangers’ music;
I shut the door to drown it out.
Back turned to his boarded window,
he pulls ragged cushions off the couch.
At ten, we crouch in his closet-sized room,
among hand-drawn birthday cards
and his scuffed leather boots,
so he can lead the words we recite:
Adonai eloheinu, our god but not mine,
for he broke the centuries-old matrilineal line
for my Irish Catholic mother who has custody now
in a three-bedroom on the other side of town.
Call it exile, an order to leave:
Rocking chair in the alley,
faith in my parents’ old sheets.
Now that I fill his full bed,
he spreads out cushions to sleep.
We don’t sing at bedtime;
I’m too old to be soothed
by Baubie’s star necklace,
plush bunnies, or old truths.
Mouth the words of prayers
he stole from Hebrew school,
barren ritual of secular Jews.
