Honorary Jew

Honorary Jew

BY JOHN REPP

The first year, I grated potatoes, chopped onions 

& watched. The second year, I fed all but the eggs 

into the machine & said I'll do the latkes & did, 

my pile of crisp delights borne to the feast by the wife 

who baffled me, our books closed, banter hushed, 

money useless in the apartment—house, my in-laws called it, 

new-wave thump at one end, ganja reek at the other— 

in which she'd knelt to tell the no one who listened 

no more no      no more no    a three-year-old mouthing 

the essential prayer. The uncle made rich by a song 

stacked three & dug in, talking critics & Koch— 

everyone crunching now, slathering applesauce, slurping tea— 

talking Rabin & Mehitabel, radio & Durrell, 

how a song is a poem or it isn't a song 

& vice-versa. Done, he pointed a greasy finger 

at me, said You can't be a goy. You—I say it

for all to hear—are an honorary Jew! 

which, impossible dream, my latkes lived up to 

for five more years. Then the wailing. 

Then the dust.

Source: Poetry (October 2008)