Faygeleh

 We share a name which translates to

Little bird in Yiddish

but to gay man (fag) in Hebrew,

In English, she was called Fanny.

I imagine Great Grandmother Fanny 

as a flamboyant, stocky woman 

cooking up matzoh ball soup 

in her Lower East Side kosher kitchen.

She came to me in a psilocibin-

induced dream stream, 

her boisterous voice, matter of fact, 

tough love that didn’t get to be soft.

Sometimes I think she speaks to me 

through the little yellow bellied warblers 

like the one that perched on the side view mirror 

of my passenger side door.

Sometimes I think she speaks to me 

through my queerness, my divergence, 

beyond conformity that she was bound by,

beyond tradition and domesticity.

I think she may have been called

 Meshugenah (crazy/ mad) in her times,

I think she was wise in a way 

that I hope to be as an elder.