The poems in this post are part of a special section, curated by Ori Z Soltes and Robert Bettmann, The Jewish Experience.

You Will Not Replace Us

“White nationalists have a new slogan: ‘You Will Not Replace Us.’”
-The Forward

You’re probably right; your bootsoles
will press into other greens; your cheap torches
will burn other nights. Like a person
caught in mirrors, you repeat yourselves, sharp lines
off into the distance.

                           But what about how
you won’t replace us, either? We who
letter our signs and then come together
tight, to ring you, to lock you down?
                                               In the veins
of cities there will be bodies and there will be
antibodies. And people—this is unbearable—
die from moments like this. Each of us hoping
it’s the other side—

                                  —I do hope it’s you.
Honestly, I want us not even to replace you
but to dismantle you, leave you as parts in the shed.
You want us dead, or shipped far away.
I want for you infertility and rust; I want to bury you
somewhere you can’t be remembered.

                                                        Instead
it’s going to be the same: you’ll turn up
in another street, barking like a dog. Us ringing,
the chain that is always coming for you.

Asking for Something

Certain requests come back return-to-sender,
like the ones for world peace or the end of hunger;
Your silence there Your way of saying This is a
you problem. And so, when I set out a chair for You,
I usually don’t ask for the world-sweeping gesture,
reversal of the human tide; from my chair I just ask
if sometimes You can hold my suffering for me.
Or if You could keep an eye on my joy. Between Us
waits a small white bowl, porcelain—or sometimes
it’s a bucket, dented but watertight. Either way, I
ask You for what’s possible: if I can decant me into
this vessel when I’m brimming over. That, yes—
and also, if You could, when I’m ready—even if
I don’t know that I am—pour it all back into me.

I’m the author of the poetry collections We Were the People Who Moved (Tebot Bach, winner of the Patricia Bibby Prize), Some Unimaginable Animal (Orison Books), and What’s Left to Us by Evening (Orison Books). I’m also the author of a non-fiction guide to the creative process called the Artist’s Torah, three short story collections, and three novels. My books have won such awards as the Drue Heinz Prize and the Juniper Prize, among others. I have a PhD in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MFA in writing from Vermont College, and I teach creative writing at Georgetown University. You can find out more, if you like, at davidebenbach.com.

Featured image in this post: Song Jade-like Bluish White Porcelain Bowl (9958262555), Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China, creative commons via wikimedia commons.