While Jonas naps, I sweep the sidewalk
and watch for the goyim in fancy black cars
who prowl the boroughs looking for a sick Jew
to ship off to Swinburne Island for confinement.
Anyone here got a fever?
they ask.
I’d like to give them a fever,
God forbid.
Paralysis of the morning, they call it.
We call it the Summer Plague.
You wake up the children for matzo-bry
except today, they can’t get out of bed.
Daniel, I says, take off your shoes
before you come into this house.
Dora, he says, a little bit of shmutz
never hurt anyone.
But how would my husband know that?
No one knows anything, except the fear
that drives sane men to bludgeon stray cats,
then drown them–seventy thousand last week–
and purify city streets with a ceremonial cleansing,
four million gallons of soap and water every day, I hear–
and mothers to fill nasal syringes with saltwater
and jam it up our children’s noses.
In the evening, I feel Jonas’s forehead one last time—
still cool, thank God—
while he sits on my lap, fighting sleep
as we rock to the lullaby my mother sang to me:
Sleep, my child, my comfort, my beauty,
Sleep, my darling one,
Sleep, my life, my only kaddish, lulinke lu-lu
Sleep, my life, my only kaddish, lulinke lu-lu
By your cradle sits your mama,
Sings a song and weeps,
You’ll understand some day perhaps
What is on her mind
then I place him in his crib,
so smart for his age,
and I count off the days left of this lousy summer,
count off the days till the morning frost of October.
And I kiss his little cheek, still cool.
Thank God.
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