Tribu

for my mother

i come from a tribe
a long line of
proud women with
long noses and proud chins
who held the world up with
wide skirts and chicken soup
who spoke their thoughts without
thinking too much and thus
created a universe unto themselves
where feelings were not
to be bandied about
but kept alive and open
like our tender hearts
even if they were blown apart by
cruelty or disgust or grief too deep
to rise above

when it thundered
adelaide and lydia broll
sprang for their closets
they spoke fluent yiddish but
never admitted to being jewish
and it remained an enigma for us
until we put together our heads
and thought about it hard
and why they kept it from
their children all those years

a familial revolution
breaking through
the alcoholic stupors
as the women rise up
drunk and cross eyed
and say, "enough!" to
an anxiety undenounced
in quickstep to
Reichian marches
an anxiety undiagnosed
passed along bloodlines and
sweat, closeted
yet made more conscious by
fermented potatoes and malt

unspoken anxiety of
who would be next
who raped, who gassed
who turned into lamps
in those desolate times
at the end of train rides
and forced marches to
no music but a madman's voice

and now we turn from
this horrific history
and bellow our feelings
into the infinite unknown
we're no longer numb
no longer drunk at the bar
we not only feel courage
but spread it around in
the retelling of our stories
we're reconciled to our tribe
to our mothers
and we forgive them
our loud but self-edited music