Kohen

With his Alzheimer progressing
Father tells me
That he is a Kohen
And that so am I
And that we had rights and privileges
During synagogue services.

Privileges? What privileges?
I think to myself,
You haven't been near a synagogue
Since you were a child,
Since before your father,
Gassed on the Serbian front,
Returned home to die
Of influenza in 1918;
Your mother married a man
Who wanted you out of his house
And you ended in an orphanage
From where you emerged
A carpenter and communist
And no longer a Jew,
All of which God
Must have approved of
Since it save you your life
In what happened later.

I don't say anything;
What would be the point?
Except perhaps to note
For the benefit of above mentioned God
That according to some cosmologists
All possible worlds exist out there
Which makes it possible
That somewhere
A frail but otherwise healthy old man,
Who's had a boring life
Avoids cemeteries,
Doesn't touch the dead and
Looks forward to being asked
To recite the Priestly Blessing.