Kneeling and Falling

by Florence Weinberger

Has my mother fallen to her knees?  Memory

is never enough, I believe her head’s nearly touching

the radio, I’m old enough to know Roosevelt’s voice,

I can hear the dusk of war in his grief, and see,

my mother’s hand is at her throat. 

She tells me, years later, no matter whose war,

the Jews will be on the losing end.

Jews are forbidden to kneel to anyone, not even God.

Only on the Day of Atonement, the cantor falls

prostrate, humbled for all of us, and I, in the dazzling

cathedral where Lori got married, couldn’t fold

to the kneeling bench at my feet.

Keening without consciousness, my father dropped

as if he’d been struck when my mother died,

and slowly my sister and I raised him up. 

Sometimes in yoga when I double over into

the child’s pose, knees and elbows tucked under,

I could be that girl sunk down next to my young mother

and it looks a lot like prayer.

* * * * *

"Kneeling and Falling" was first published in Miramar