Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel
After 30 minutes of Christmas music, the high school choir broke into the Hanukkah song “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel” at the holiday concert. The person seated beside me began to complain under her breath. Jesus Fucking Christ! I thought. I examined her out of the corner of my eye. She wasn’t an obvious Nazi. Somewhere in her fifties, she was trying hard to look younger, a frosted blonde with the sharp features of the obsessive dieter. I didn’t say anything, though I might have let out a sigh. The song changed to something Christmassy. I focused on my daughter up on stage. She was heedlessly singing, her face all alight.
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Howie Good’s latest poetry books are The Horse Were Beautiful, available from Grey Book Press, and Swimming in Oblivion: New and Selected Poems from Redhawk Publications.