“Hey Laura! Lookin’ hot!” Jackie exclaimed at coffee hour after church
To broadcast her own bisexuality, which I thought attention-seeking
And thought about her mother’s own attention-seeking behaviors
Of her childhood abuse she now struggles as an adult to survive
And her several marriages, separations
I wonder how many generations down
The iniquities of the fathers are visited
And I have to survive the iniquities my father visited upon me
Complicit with my silent mothers abetting
Upon riding with a friend in his boat off the coast of Atlantic Florida
We glimpsed the mansion visited upon the young Kennedy
—I think I saw a yacht moored in front of the Kennedy mansion—
And I wonder why—from one perspective—some don’t seem to catch a break
Like the woman whom privilege never visited a conviction upon her rape
From one perspective, the fates spin an unjust thread
What a cheat life would be were that the exclusive narrative
A greater window into ultimate reality’s perspective
Vanishing lines converging upon conviction
Upon ultimate equity, or else redemption were a vacuous term
And rebirth but a rabbinic dialogue written in a Sacred Text
Close the embossed leather covers and lock the words in silence
Yet were there another perspective, there were ultimate equity
And then the escaped conviction convicts the prep perp, perv’s soul
And Jackie, her mother, and I amount to something
Overcoming the iniquities of the fathers
Rise up in new birth, new self, no self, shed self, Arise all Souls Arise
Then there’s the break the crucified One just couldn’t catch
And look where He ended up
Really, where did He end up?
David Fekete 