70spoems/ira*

That which does not exist cannot have come from something

You plan our children,
all of them Russian Jews.
“We will call the boy Ira.”

I think that this cannot be true,
this self-inflicted genocide
you ask of me, some hollow vessel
to be filled with your genes.

There isn’t even a word for it,
guicide, senicide,
I mean there isn’t a word for it,
it cannot be true.

I see bulging black bags,
my ancestry, my blood
put out for the garbage.

I will never bear your children.
My children will be my own.
I will call my son John or Isaac,
I will call him.

I will call him.

5/8/78