Today's poem is by Sarah A. Etlinger
Hanukkah Dinosaur
Judaism is trending again, my friend Jared tells me,
Imagine, I respond, you too
I want him the way adults want things
Lately people are asking me
Bob asks me quietly, and is very concerned.
Another friend texts me about Kanye West
I want to tell them to buy this dinosaur,
the dinosaur bright and garishly green, proud and smiling
two ancient entities older than all this grass and pavement
so I wonder if I should buy Dinokkah,
the inflatable Hanukkah Dinosaur,
who is bright green with a blue T-shirt, cartoon
menorah blazing on the front, and a big blue
dreidel lying on its side. He wears a white yarmulke,
which you can only see from the back.
Everything is lit from the bottom.
can have a Hanukkah dinosaur in your front window or yard.
to remind themselves they were once children.
I do not buy him.
if I've noticed how anti-Semitism is getting worse
or if I think people aren't afraid of anything anymore.
Last week I told him do not read any of the tweets
or the headline in the NYT calling a blatant attack on Jews
purported anti-semitisminstead of what it actually was,
actual anti-semitism. Do not, I said, think harder about
the Jewish Space Lasers or the LA bridge protesters
or Adidas.
and says he's a fucking asshole looking for more power,
and I say Yeah, but we took down our mezuzah this week
for the first time ever. She is silent for several minutes
before she tells me about the football game. She doesn't know
what to do or say about any of this.
They all want something different
for me, and when someone asks what they can do,
so I can rig him up on my small unruly yard
for everyone to see as they pass by, on their way to elsewhere,
as they whiz past warm glowing plastic faces
of the tiny wan Jesus and Mary and Joseph, dingy lambs
weary at the end of the shepherd's crook, the molded
shepherd's face hidden by his modest plastic cloak
instead of sombera wholly joyful amalgam:
and even this darkening sky, its hollow core
full of air and light quietly humming.
Tweet
Copyright © 2024 Sarah A. Etlinger All rights reserved
from A Bright Wound
Cornerstone Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission
Home
Archives
Web Weekly Features
Support Verse Daily
About Verse Daily
FAQs
Submit to Verse Daily
Copyright © 2002-2024 Verse Daily All Rights Reserved