I carried the whimper of a captive nature
into the Lubavitch school,
my binder, lessons
uninsured by divinity.
I passed an ima in a hallway,
eyes motionless,
little product of scripture
clutching her,
toddling to keep up.
Another mom told me
her son’s favorite smoothie–
orange like stolen orchards.
She loosened her tichel,
her smile flashed
behind God.
A morah’s wig slid,
rootless,
by my office,
where Halacha
left learners
with severed connections.
Where kindergarteners I’d teach numerals would blurt,
“One hundred thousand million hundred!”
thrilled
by what they couldn’t grasp.
Where I’d mourn my secular words
that never found an ear for conception,
my stillborn–
and I’d press on,
explaining preposition worksheets
to eight-year-olds.
They’d tail their t’s to hide the Cross
and crow: they already knew everything.
But none could spell their names.
I’d shoo suited teens
charging in with velvet pouches,
pleading to strap me and save me with phylacteries.
I couldn’t speak
to the principal, later, in the lounge,
as she plated PTA fruit
beneath a sketch
of children in the promised land.
Artwork courtesy of our featured artist Ernest Williamson III, PhD
