Yom Hashoah 2015 Poem by Jonathan Dick

I was born out of the frozen ashes of six million
Jews, coalescing in death like a rat king
suffering under the hailing weight of cultural
compliance. I was born mangled, with my arms
bound together by shackles of hate, and disgust
was a virtue of maniacal personhood, an obsessive
compulsive cleaning, like a chametz burning.

I was born, gutted and distrusted by all who definitely
and assuredly, and evidently cared
about the me’s and the I’s and the we’s
of ideological fortitude.

I was born, with eyes forever pointed
to the trauma of my people, as they were shovelled
into the eternal numbness, I was born
a dusty Jew made into a pillar of living ash,
solidified by my will to devour, live
and float into the elderly sky, like a human
snow flake tasting its freedom.