Thirteen Poem by J. Barrett Wolf

I hated the way the letters were shaped.
Such awkward little weapons
Mistakes done to a familiar English.
the alien sounds…
ah – do - nye….le – she – bey – ach.

The old man, whose name I can’t - won’t - remember
With his old Jew beard and constant disdain for suburban kids
Pointed at the lines and phrases,
Read the syllables underneath.
How he hated teaching the uninterested!

I learned the rote phonetics.
I learned to say the words.

There was no meaning in the davening black suits,
Expensive and ill-fit.
Suits that owned high holy day seats
Close to the Arc.

Were they better…
because they knew what those wails meant?
Did I not belong, with my family
In the folding chairs next to the fire exit?
We had no Friday night candles,
No Sabbath, no great-grandfather from the old country.

At my Bar Mitzvah, gazing out over relatives and friends,
Stage-frightened
Repeating a single line of the Haftorah,
my gibbered request for manhood.

The whole room shrank to the fourteenth row, left of center,
Where Mark Stern sat
His head shaking slowly from side to side,
A party to my secret.

Today I am a man.
Today I have learned shame.