I used to believe we're born once and die. <br />I was pretty young then and didn't know what death was— <br />Maybe bullets from a machine gun on a TV show, <br />Which I thought I could put my hands out to stop. <br /> <br />Our Rabbi never spoke of death <br />Except in the Friday services <br />When the organ would play background music <br />And a hush blanketed the congregation <br />At the word 'Yisgodol', which began Kaddush. <br /> <br />Christians sometimes ranted about death and Judgment, <br />But that was a parallel world, I was a reform Jew, <br />One of the ones who wore a red cape for Christmas carols <br />But never sang on the word 'Christ'. <br /> <br />We believed the Russians would come one night <br />In their planes, dropp bombs and kill us all, <br />I asked my dad and he said yeah, it would happen. <br />What I worried about, though, was not death <br />But the possibility I'd be on the toilet <br />When the sirens went off, and my family <br />Would already have left town by the Emergency Route.<br /><br />Max Reif<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/preface-to-a-long-poem-about-death/
