INHERITANCE

                  (Moses) poured some of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head and

                  anointed him,

                  to consecrate him. ¹He then brought Aaron's sons forward…  

She stands before the congregation draped in pale blue and chants Torah

for the first time, her soprano voice soothing the guttural edge off the

words, the crisp instructions concerning knives meant to draw blood, the

bull or sheep or dove whose viscera will soon be laid out on the altar.

Her singsong is breezy, jazzy, all brutal meaning hidden by the trope and

I am brought up short, the way one is stilled by a sudden afternoon rain,

for in this ode to separation – girl from woman, life from well-ordered

death – what unnerves me is our clear lack of choice. We are a casualty

of what precedes. Rumors, regrets, terrors: we box them up, secure

space in a seedy neighborhood we visit more often than we dare admit:

the shoes laid out in pairs, spare lamp or mattress neatly stacked, all held

safe for a small fee.

Instinctively, I unpack a familiar box, set down with ease a cutting room

floor, match carelessly thrown and warning shouted, flames cascading

from one bolt of cloth to the next, melting seams that hold floor & wall

together, twisting stairways and elevator shafts into metal tombs. Triangle

Shirtwaist, where those not immediately consumed behind padlocked

doors jump from ledges high enough to frame, in one terrible farewell, the

Golden Land.

Thus was it offered up to me, child of a child of immigrants who stood a

century ago at Washington & Greene, watching breath turn to cinder, fire

hoses fail, streets of red. How can I give away what is not wholly mine?

I can’t. The schmattes must go. The space in every corner is already

packed to the gills with Cossack boots caked in mud, pushcarts, prayer

shawls, and small inked numbers; a lone brass candlestick, some barbed

wire, a whispered name. If she asks – my daughter – what I’m doing

groping around in the dark, I don’t know if I’ll be able to tell her: something

unsettled is always moving toward us, a storm, a taking apart and rhythm

not easily contained. We’ve been anointed by the dead. So my mother

told it to me & someday I will tell it to her: Love, we are all pressed up

against the knife.

Sue Swartz is a poet, essayist, and social justice activist from Bloomington, Indiana. You can find her commentary and poems about Torah, tattoos, and truth on her blog, Awkward Offerings.