Main Street This Morning
…….
The guy in front of me
…….in traffic
is letting everyone
…….in.
…….
I’m stuck here behind him
…….fuming
while he’s up there indulging,
…….waving
…….
at all the cars like a policeman
…….or a pope.
I really have no patience for all
…….the forgiveness
…….
and magnanimity at my expense.
…….Who cares
if I got here the same way they did–
…….that was
…….
long ago and many, many
…….miles back.
I say we close all the side streets,
…….build a wall,
…….
force them to go around. I hate
…….how they nose
meekly up to the intersection,
…….then elbow,
…….
shoulder, knee their way in
…….to the civilized
flow of things, shattering it completely,
…….killing
…….
my rhythm and my buzz. There’s no
…….telling how many
will come after, whole families
…….squeezed in the back,
…….
entire villages trundling along behind them,
…….the dark faces
staring out of rear windows
…….with a vast
…….
hunger, or sadness, or is that
hate in their eyes?
…….
…….

Hora

The older I get the more Jewish I look.
I don’t feel particularly Jewish
but I look like a Jew. Have you noticed
how some people dance around
the word Jew? They don’t like to say it.
As if it sounded vaguely pejorative.
As if they only ever heard it used
as a verb. As if it were somehow
offensive to people of the Jewish
persuasion. I am not persuaded.
And I am not of the Jewish persuasion.
But I sure do look like a Jew
with my graying beard, famous
nose, curly hair and glasses. And the older
I get the more people are dancing
around me. Everywhere I look these days
the people are dancing and getting
younger and younger the older I get.
They’re laughing and singing and dancing
around and around like they’re doing
the Hora and I’m this old Jew in the middle
just standing here like a verb
of being. Because I don’t know the steps,
and I don’t know the tense. And I don’t
even know the words to the song.

© Paul Hostovsky

Paul Hostovsky’s eighth book of poems, The Bad Guys, won the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize for 2015. To read more of his work, visit him at www.paulhostovsky.com.

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