I Am From

for Steve Zeitlin

I am from Ansonia a small town

along the Naugatuck River

where many people worked

at Farrell Birmingham factory

to make ball bearings.

I am from a father whose father

Oscar came t to this small town from

Bupst, Lithuania learned English and then

wrote letters for the town.

Oscar opened a men’s clothing

and family shoe store in this same small town

and then bought a few buildings

where other immigrants lived.

I am from a father who went

to Cornell University and got all A’s

but when he went

for his interview at Yale Medical School

they said the Jewish quota was full.

I am from a mother whose family

were immigrants too from Rumania

to Grand Forks, North Dakota.

When my mother’s baby sister

got into Yale in biochemistry

my mother and grandmother

moved with her to New Haven

and my mother met my father there

at the Bendix washing machine company

where she was an assistant

and modeled washing machines.

I am from eighteen years

in the small factory town where I gave

a sophomoric and incendiary

Bas Mitzvah speech a la Dr. King

about inequality and injustice

at the Beth Israel Synagogue Center.

Neither parent gave incendiary speeches.

My father was a Republican

because he was a small business owner.

My mother voted Democrat because

she liked FDR. They laughed about their differences.

I am from kind Talmudic people

who wanted and tried to do the right thing.

I am from trying to know now

what right thing actually means.