In front of the rabbi’s
Old Chevrolet station wagon
They saw engraved words on
The wall. They were the words
Of a minor prophet, a disciple
Of Isaiah’s, they later discovered,
A proponent of peace and ‘Walking
Humbly with your God’…they liked
The way the vowels rolled simply
Off the tongue—Little did they realize?
The annoyance, mispronunciations
And taunting that would follow
Later, there was a Bar Mitzvah and
My namesake’s identity came up
Again and I spoke to his philosophy
To the best of my abilities as if I were
Supposed to be an embodiment—
Outside of the synagogue, it was a
Different story, non-Jewish friends,
Teachers, librarians, strangers
Wanted to call me Mike, Michael,
Mikhail, Mick, anything but the two syllable
Sound that seemed so simple to me
When kids took Earth Science
In junior high, they learned of
Its’ other definitions—
I was the shiny crystalline stuff
They saw embedded in the sidewalk
Or the stuff they sprayed in their shoes
To ward off foot fungus
Either way, they would step on the shiny sparkles
That were me and laugh
Until I would openly smirk or grimace—
Upon reading this tale, someone would
Play me a miniature violin
Of melancholy and point a finger,
Yet, to this very day, people want to say
My name, no matter how obscure or popular
It might get, something other than what it is
Even my friend, Abdullah, and his name
Is Abdullah, and you would think he’d have
No excuse but to learn, calls me Mike no
Matter how often I correct him—

by Micah Zevin
Bronx, NY