Marking Jews

It was another era, generations
ago when I was a child learning
so many complicated life lessons
among them to play on the street
alone, to walk across the street to
the school for classes and to be
startled and confused when other
children called out to me words
that made little sense but which
smouldered with menace. When
first heard the accusation Christ
Killer needed an explanation from
my father and afterward variations
on Dirty Jew needed no explication.
It is only now that I wonder how
I could be picked out from among
so many others living in the central
core of a city as different for in
my mind I looked just like any
other child of the time. Now I
fully understand that these curses
became a familial inheritance from
parent to child lest the fires of
hatred dim and expire. Now I know
that the child whose contempt for
what I am marked my life is the
adult who teaches their offspring
never to forget the vile presence of
Jews and to ensure they are marked.