WEBVTT

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OK, I'd like to read a few
more poems about growing up,

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childhood of thing.

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The next poem is called
"The Jewish Family."

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It's a poem that I
like a lot because it

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has a lot of energy in it.

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And I guess there's not
much I have to say about it.

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But it's about the
difficulties of growing up

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in a Jewish family, about
the pressures of love.

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"There's a mother on her
bed playing solitaire,

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refusing to sleep.

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Why is she suddenly
old and bitter

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and without sex to save
her or pills to put her

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under like a little girl?

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Remember the fever she
lowered with mercy, cooking,

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and practice?

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There's father striding the
huge cracks because nothing

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is wrong, dignified in his
long coat like a paint brush,

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spreading sickness,
smiles, and fix it.

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When we can't sleep,
we roll over and over.

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When we can't remember,
what's to become of us?

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At night, we play
secret adolescence.

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We make up stories to
fit the bad things.

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And by turns, we are heroes
or victims how we feel.

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One night, we
decided to be losers,

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to kiss our enemies
until they were Jewish.

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Then the grocer
refused us credit.

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Then it took forever
just to peddle papers,

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just to make mistakes.

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Whose story is this,
whose lifetime?

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Some families never grow up.

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With vegetable nerves
and careful accounts,

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this pain is for father for
looking away, for frowning.

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This pain is for mother who
keeps it inside and sickens

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who has organs
removed, gallstones,

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one lonely breast removed.

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What can you do with
a suffering child?

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Medicine won't help.

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Candy sweetens it.

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If you beat him, the pain only
clarifies like stove grease.

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No one's to blame.

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We are Jewish.

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We dawdle around the table
like wisely on attempted lives.

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Every door I enter
is the wrong one.

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Every friend I
have is a hoodlum.

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Every woman I take is a bad
girl with toothless parents

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and dirty hair.

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And I fall forever for our sins.

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Remember the fears,
the uncertain steps

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into each other's arms?

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And the house, daddy,
bristling with soars

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that wouldn't scar, card
games unable to end,

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policemen who never
cease finding me

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under pillows and porches,
sooty and weeping, confessing.

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If you love me,
daddy, do it good.

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Beat me up laughing, not
crying like a sorry old man.

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Why is love like dying?

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Why don't we ever leave home?"

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