Letter to my aunts, uncles, and cousins who want to know the date of my son’s bar mitzvah

This weekend I saw two grown men cry:
a man drunk and sick at knowing
his parents had screwed up so badly
they’d fucked up his life
before he was even born
and a man who had lost his old dog—
belly full of cancer
at his kid’s third birthday party
while we were opening presents.

My husband helped dig the grave.

Balls hot outside.

The six-year-old girl who loved the dog watched
and asked questions. Why
are you digging this hole? Why
are her eyes still open?

Anyway, my father said that you’d been asking if
my son, who’s twelve now, was having a bar mitzvah.

No, he’s not.

At least not a traditional bar mitzvah—
we will not collect checks in a basket by the door,
the rabbi will not cover the boy’s head in her tallis and bless him...

Like a marsh full of birds taking off, feathers splashing,
we too wonder what happened, how a kid
who spoke in full sentences at one and a half
could drop out of Hebrew school at ten, afraid
of the twisted letters and guttural stops.

Prayer felt like a burden or an option to him.

It wasn’t something I wanted to force,
muscles flexed and twitching, and of course
we hope you’ll come visit sometime—
we sing Shabbos blessings and drink wine
every Friday night—you’d be welcome anytime.

Josette Akresh-Gonzales is working on her first book and was a finalist in the 2017 Split Lip Turnbuckle Chapbook Contest. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart and has been published or is forthcoming in Rattle, The Pinch, The Journal, Breakwater Review, PANK, and many other journals. She co-founded the journal Clarion and was its editor for two years. Josette lives in the Boston area with her husband and two boys and rides her bike to work at a nonprofit medical publisher. You can find her on Twitter @Vivakresh.