My Invisible Aunt

An aunt I’ve never seen in the flesh
lurks in my grandmother’s kitchen
perhaps communing with the kosher sausages.
She is avoiding me.

I had always suspected her of not existing
despite glimpsing photographs
of her with my vanished rabbi uncle,
whose existence I also had to take on trust.

The sight of her half-remembered face
repeated like a smudged photocopy
in inquisitive men who said they were her sons
eventually proved her to be real,

but that was long ago and tonight I am
being moved like a chess piece
from room to room in an effort to preserve
the kosher space around my invisible aunt.

My grandmother smiles mournfully,
divides herself between the ghettoes
my unseen aunt creates.
“She is very orthodox,” my grandmother explains.

I smile politely and wonder if,
thanks to this careful separation,
my invisible aunt envisages me
as half-Jew meat or watered milk

or just as unclean animal, as pig.
I am tempted to burst through the curtains
and confront her – but she’s far from being a vicar
and the noises off in this sorry farce

are those of bigotry run riot,
of prayer and weakness,
and of the foundations of her god’s house
shifting in the sand she built them on.

 

Adam Horovitz

Adam Horovitz’s debut collection Turning was published by Headland Pres in 2011.

http://adamhorovitz.co.uk/blog/shop/turning-by-adam-horovitz/

 

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4 Responses to My Invisible Aunt

    1. well m8, I’m neither orthodox nor reformed, but I could be a believer which my account for my yid ..neshuma (soul)
      as for your aunt, I hope she is well ~

      Comment by JoHnny de-Lux on 31 August, 2012 at 6:42 pm
    2. ‘my’ should read may..sorry Mum _

      Comment by JoHnny de-Lux on 31 August, 2012 at 7:13 pm
    3. As do I! I doubt I’ll know. Only ever met her once.

      Comment by Adam Horovitz on 3 September, 2012 at 6:15 pm
    4. bigotry does not rule! I knew your late uncle Marcus and loved his cantorial singing and still see you uncle Martin sometimes. And I love your poetry and your father’s cool acts.

      Comment by sarah prais on 5 December, 2013 at 10:29 am

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