song for a false homeland

song for a false homeland

"shema yisrael adoni eloheinu adonai echad"

i’ve never been from somewhere
at least that what you’ve told me
you paint a scene of all of us huddled underneath the same diaspora mylar blanket
hand me pamphlets on our homelessness
and try to sell me a solution, a shiny new house

but i’ve been to your abode before
for the most part, it was the same taste of foreign as any other place abroad

the only flickers of intimacy between me and your country
was when I was in an old Tel Aviv synagogue with my mother
my hair blanketed by white fabric trimmed with lace
purple dress just past my knees
I felt holy
Rachel on her wedding day

the second time was in a suburban mall
with my host sister Netta and her friend Maya
watching a Wonder Woman with hair like ours
dark and brown and thick and curly
Miriam without her ​​timbrels

but two brief butterfly kisses in a teenage summer’s worth of time doesn’t mean much

you’re just another land that i can’t speak the tongues of
can’t vote in

i’ve felt more at home in underground archives
reading a Yiddish newspaper
celebrating the announcement that hitler is dead

so i’ll make my aliyah to Amherst

you say i’ve never been from somewhere,
then tell me what is the upper middle class shtetl
where i went to b’nai mitzvahs every weekend
the entire the year i was thirteen

that is where my homeland is
in the house where I had playdates with my 3rd grade crush during Hebrew school carpool
on the snowy rooftop where I had my first kiss after the boy’s dad lit the shabbat candles