Robert Cooperman

What We Learned from Hebrew School

More important than learning to read Hebrew
so we could recite the prayers like a hive of bees,
and even more important than the Bible stories
so we could appreciate our heritage,
and far more important than Rabbi Blitzstein
guilting us into contributing all our loose change
and any bills we were dumb enough to carry,
to ensure that Israel would survive:

The one essential lesson: never wear
our yarmulkas walking to or from Hebrew School.
Or as one friend, whose parents had outsmarted
the rabid werewolves of the Holocaust, warned,

“Why advertise?” so we shoved our skullcaps
into our pockets before our treacherous journey
through the St. Rose of Lima enemy territory,
figuring strength in numbers, but we were just
four little kids, and the hitters in our neighborhood—
most horrid of all, Terrible Tommy Flynn—
towered over us like ogres and trolls.

Once inside the cheder, we could finally
breathe again, with only the annoyance
of Rabbi Blitzstein mocking our ignorance
of everything beyond the Dodgers: the Duke,
Campy, Koufax, and saintly Jackie Robinson:

all we needed to know to be Americans.

 

The Jerry Garcia Sweatshirt

Dropping off postcards
for Beth and me to write and mail
this potentially cataclysmic election year,
Ron stares at my sweatshirt.

“Is that?” he points, “Jerry Garcia?

“Yeah,” I reply, “he died 29 years ago today.”

“Jeez,” Ron mutters,
“it seems just yesterday
we were sobbing over his death.”
I remember that afternoon:
my embarrassed tears for a man
I never met.

The Grateful Dead,
one of the joys of my life:
their music, the Medieval folktale
redemption story 
from which they took their name,
the memories of a time
when all things seemed possible
despite the Asian jungle war,

when we were young and wild
to summon the spirits and songs
of the benevolent dead,
who would surely protect us all
and who we need now,
more than ever.

 

Robert Cooperman's latest collection is Steerage (Kelsay Books), his next chapbook is August 24, 1957 (Finishing Line Press).