Written by Louis Faber
Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and I
am certain that neither of my mothers,
one who had me, one who adopted me,
will rise from their respective graves,
with Jesus, all three Jewish.
But resurrection is not a task
given over to women, the Bible says,
with its always careful division of labor.
And I will stop and think of the Judas
in my life, the once step-brother who
cast me out of the family that
he claimed was always his but never
fully mine despite what he said
when he wanted something from me.
He never called me Rabbi,
never kissed me on the cheek merely
told the Sanhedrin in Miami-Dade
probate court of my false claims
to being family if not kin, that I
was no child of his parents,
and he did it all, did it willingly
for heaven knows how many
pieces of silver he expected to get.
But Easter falls during Passover
so perhaps he was less Judas
and more Pharaoh, and I was
the person he finally let go to freedom.
.
Louis Faber is a poet and writer living in Florida with his wife (a fellow poet) and their cat (their editor). His work has appeared widely in the U.S., Canada, Europe and India, and in Cantos, The Poet (U.K.), Alchemy Spoon, Dreich (Scotland), Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Defenestration, Atlanta Review, Glimpse, Rattle, Pearl, The South Carolina Review and Worcester Review, among others, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.