Where My Family Comes From
This morning I am going through piles (and piles and piles) of notebooks. With the intention of throwing them away. There are poems across pages in all of them. Here's one:
Where My Family Came From I don't know. No one said much because they were all anxious to be Americans. Doctors, etcetera. Not Eastern European peasants, persecuted, poor. Maybe they were farmers.
My father's mother Rivka, short and difficult, had thin thin lips. She was widowed young. She listened to the radio all day long. Her only English was on the radio. My father bought her bread. He had to lie about the price. She said everything was too much. Everything. She might have had a sister. Tante something. I think I met her once. Her children would be my relatives. I never saw them.
My father's father died before my life. I am Esther for his Oscar. Is his life a part of mine? I wonder now.