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Unfathomable
When I was a little boy
near the last moments of elementary school
I had no poem for poetry day
and my teacher
with her fancy shoes
and a movie-star dress a hundred times
more beautiful than any of my mother’s
of old-world cloth
asked where was my poetry
and I did an absurd little dance
the class laughed
and the teacher threatened, once, twice,
to send me to the principal
and I started to recite for God,
I remember,
not for the class
or the teacher
with the fancy shoes
my precocious impromptu poem
that refused to be a poem:
What is the opposite of…
What is the opposite of Heil Hitler?
What is the opposite of Judenrein?
What is the opposite of cattle cars?
What is the opposite of tattoos?
What is the opposite of yellow stars?
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