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Honorary Jew
The first year, I grated potatoes, chopped onions & watched. The second year, I fed all but the eggs into the machine & said I'll do the latkes & did, my pile of crisp delights borne to the feast by the wife who baffled me, our books closed, banter hushed, money useless in the apartment—house, my in-laws called it, new-wave thump at one end, ganja reek at the other— in which she'd knelt to tell the no one who listened no more no no more no a three-year-old mouthing the essential prayer. The uncle made rich by a song stacked three & dug in, talking critics & Koch— everyone crunching now, slathering applesauce, slurping tea— talking Rabin & Mehitabel, radio & Durrell, how a song is a poem or it isn't a song & vice-versa. Done, he pointed a greasy finger at me, said You can't be a goy. You—I say it for all to hear—are an honorary Jew! which, impossible dream, my latkes lived up to for five more years. Then the wailing. Then the dust.