Thanking Our Stars

This poem was written by Caitlin Wolper in a 12-Month Poetry Collection Generator taught by Angel Nafis

survive (v.) continue to live or exist, especially in spite of danger or hardship; continue to live or exist in spite of; remain alive after the death of.

The stars we thank? They’re lucky. Lucky
to flitter crystalline in black sea. Lucky they’re
not yellow, not really. Lucky even, to slowly
circle the sky, instead of strain. We might
hang like that. We have, in other bodies.

Brecht said: “It’s simply luck
that I’ve survived so many friends,”
an evolutionary accident to be here at all

(although our BRCA sounds
like berakhah, blessing,
women gifted death).

Synonyms include: outlive; outlast; persist in difficult circumstances.

I say I don’t want to write a “Jewish” book & I don’t want to be a
    “Jewish Poet” and what am I afraid of?

• Sheitel-wearing woman who’d swear I’m not her kind

• Men who move away on airplanes

• The star I wear only sometimes

• The ritual bath I’m barred from

• Security guards at the synagogue

• Paying to pray at the synagogue

• Surviving attacks on the synagogue

I stand behind the prison
of my ribcage, clutch bones:

can I use “survive” when my family, both sides, crested in from pogroms and not on the waves of Hitler’s hand, when my great-grandfather was a fruit-seller but my generation grew in the suburbs?

Thanking our stars? It’s a joke. Wry, because
our stars never did us much good. Painted violence,
needled pain. Thanks, stars. (Think of this sentiment
the way Seinfeld would say it—

“What’s the deaaaaaal with thanking your stars? From what I hear, stars were never suuuuuper lucky for the Jews.” Prolonged shrug, canned laughs.)

Survive: keep your head down on the subway; pick at cracked skin; buy something pretty; find the body that fits yours; find a body who fits yours; find a distraction; fake a hobby; keep your head down on the street; pick something to look toward; pick people to look toward; figure out how to make love tangible and then let your loved ones touch it; pay rent and brush your teeth; wake up and wake up and wake up and wake up

  Synonyms include:
  remain alive; cling to life; pull through
  get through; hold on; hold out;
  endure; remain; go on
  linger; exist
  be extant
  be

one night, after,

  I mentioned Hebrew school.
  He turned, naked surprise:
  “You’re the first Jew I’ve ever met.”

Still, I stayed the night. After, morning —

                                   remember the yellow bruise?

*

This poem was previously published in the anthology Strange Fire: Jewish Voices from the Pandemic.