Someone Else's Livid Day

The headline doesn’t mention epigenetics, but

startles with words like trauma

and holocaust, and a bright picture

of DNA Chagalled in space, curlicued

in dots of protein held

magnetically on their given lines,

like a corkscrew of music, or the barbs

on an electrified fence,

the fence behind which the children

stand, each tied in a dirty rag

that covers their ears against

the freezing Polish wind. You can see them,

striped clothes sized for someone else,

bellies distended, even the tendril

of a girl, who sways near the others,

eyes demanding to be held,

arm open to the number tattooed

there, and on her son, years later,

whose vicious fists will writhe

against ‘yid’ and ‘sheeny’

or later, her grandson,

against ‘jew-bag’ and ‘zog’—

each printed in rope-bridge code

deep within the children

of those lucky enough

to survive their own ravenous

seasons, displayed in crisp reality

as each DNA is unrolled like a Torah scroll,

read out loud each shabbat, memories

that drag a language into the marrow,

into the bones, into the savage

hand of someone else’s livid day,

spread generation to generation.

Look deeply

into the DNA of my own children.

There you will find me, a little girl, dark

hair too long and torn underpants, unconscious

on a tiled floor because I couldn’t

remember my times tables.

This poem first appeared in Pigeonholes Journal

Rachel Neve-Midbar