and my friend Karen remembers
as a little girl
studying Hebrew she inquired

of her refugee tutor who stroked his beard
and said in Yiddish "if there is a god
or if there isn't a god

a Jew studies"--isn't that a good story
beloved, but the woman in me
says that the poet lies

the poet can afford to lie

Autore: Alicia Suskin Ostriker