For V.B.F.
On Friday nights Nina’s grandmother wore the prettiest babushka
in her town and sat alone by the window
Her silence a shield against the wall of falling snow
And Valerie’s mom in Odesa never mentioned losing
all her family Valerie found the directions
for muteness at Yad Vashem
And magically the matzos materialized
in our apartment a few times a year
I thought someone wrote us coded letters on browned ridges
The vocabulary of quiet varied
My grandparents’ Yiddish spoken so their kids would not understand
The kids learned the ineffable languages of Bach and Klee
A honey cake sometimes floated in my life
like a man-made island I asked Mom to make it
any time of the year She baked it in a Bundt pan
known in the USSR as Miracle
A full Miracle waited for me hot with Mom’s love
While Valerie’s people did not make such a cake
Soft layers of quiet are my dowry
Curving emptiness settles on my shoulders like a wooly shawl
Then melts and flutters up with our floral dead
I am neither fully Ayeed nor Ukraїnka Among millions who love and argue
I’m free An American of generation zero and a half
A researcher in my own home
