FAMILY, REVISED

There seemed no end to my mother’s family

She’d casually mention some uncle

Of whom I’d never heard as if from always

He and I had known each other’s secrets.

Mention a place, no matter how obscure,

And some cousin had colonized it.

All her childhood summers had been spent

Among relatives whom now she rarely saw

Yet all their doings were known to her.

Perhaps she had a mystic link

Running back to the 1930s: Lillian’s son

Will leave New York to study in Chicago;

Give Menachem another daughters

So someone can be there to greet him.