on ontological dilutions

       








           CONFRONTING THE JEW








My mother never spoke a phrase as true.
Recalling their blind date, she said she thought
My father "was an Arab or a Jew."
Politely vicious aunts and uncles fought
Suggestions of this sort for generations,
But lost. There were no other explanations.
Spanish ancestors crossed the Pyrenees,
And found in France the safety that they sought.
Though they survived, the Torah was not taught
For long; in far and fractured colonies,
>Their baptized children wear their butchered name.
I cannot guess the onslaughts they withstood,
Or things they loved. With nothing to reclaim,
I still would say a kaddish if I could.










                                            Mike Juster














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