The Jewish Girl Who Dreamed of Saints

The following poem is an excerpt from my upcoming book (more like a chapbook, since I anticipate it being less than 100 pages) of poetry, currently titled Sorting Myself. The title isn't set in stone, though. I had a really catchy title that came to me in the middle of the night, and I stupidly thought I'd remember it by morning...I didn't. So until it's recovered from my mental oblivion, or unless I come with something new, Sorting Myself stands. Reader suggestions welcome!

Most of the poems are already written, just scattered in various journals, and several years old. This one is pretty recent. Not sure when I'll release it, but definitely next year. Before the snow melts.

The Jewish Girl Who Dreamed of Saints (potentially autobiographical):

Don’t let the quietness fool you –

she’s a heroine in her own right.

Her life is defined by choice:

The right to fight for her own identity,

because the one she was born with didn’t fit.

She and convention were destined to be enemies.

It started with the storybooks about saints

wedged between Doctor Seuss and There’s No Such Thing as a Hanukkah Bush,

Sandy Goldstein.

Other girls played MASH at recess,

while she day-dreamed about Joan of Arc.

She wondered what it must have felt like,

about to be burned for her beliefs,

and if it ever crossed the future saint’s mind

that 20^th-century Jewish girls

would hope to be half as brave as she was someday.

As she grew older,

the girl lost her verve for sainthood.

She struggled with ordinary temptations.

Couldn’t decide if she was still a virgin.

Couldn’t allow herself the simple courtesy of being human.

The best books often get bent.

Even Saint Joan had to be vulnerable and lonely.