I never heard my parents recite the Kaddish
There were only the squat unlovely candles in plain glass jars
set out on memorial holidays
—the public yahrzeit for those dateless dead
murdered in Oswiecim
or shot on the streets of Sosnowiec.
The souls of my grandparents float over us all year
graveless, light, jesting
They belong to no day and every day
no one and everyone
Which day, I wonder, will belong to my father? My mother?
I am still an untouched bride in the matter of yahrzeits.
Why can’t I feel the cold breath of those days on my cheek
as I pass through them, all unknowing, year after year?
Why not a chill presentiment
as I rise with the mourners on a Friday night?
And why is there no tiny frisson of recognition
no touch of cold familiar
on that day that will be my own?
______
Roberta Eve Tovey has edited and published in the fields of business, healthcare, education, and
the environment, and was an assistant professor at Clark University. She has her doctorate in
English literature from Princeton University. Her poetry has appeared in The Mizmor Anthology
and The Jewish Writing Project.