Ode to My Mother – Writers House Review

Woman of valor & rarity, woman of fresh

broiled chicken for dinner, woman of black

slinky skirt & loose turtleneck sweater,

woman who sets the AC to sixty,

woman who nods & smiles when her father & brother

mansplain the laws of Halachah, woman who puts

grape juice into seltzer, wild berry zinger

tea woman, mother of seven,

woman who taught Down syndrome students

for ten years, woman who began online grad school

after birthing her fourth,

Doctor of Education Management.

How strange I must seem to you—

running thirty miles across the continent to a goyishe college,

wearing pink miniskirts, fangirling over Linear Algebra,

writing poems I won’t show you,

darshening about Palestine, majoring in math & writing,

struggling to find employment

without selling my apostatical soul,

singing Hallel prayers on my estrogen anniversary.

Woman of faith, CEO woman,

kidney donor, woman who crunches

corporate budgets and pens sentimental ditties,

woman who recognized the trans pride colors on cupcake flags,

Ultra-Orthodox right-wing woman,

woman of ten P.M. walks with her mother & sister

-in-law, woman who wears a wig to work

because she must & to the grocery

because her daughters insist,

woman of Harry Potter & Martha Beck, woman who,

like her father & brother, sings silent prayers out loud, proudly

off-key.

Yehudis Burton graduated in the class of 2024, and studied math. For work, she teaches. For fun, however, she writes poems and climbs rocks.

Yehudis wrote this poem in a course taught by Joanna Fuhrman, who selected the piece for inclusion in WHR.