Mike Alexander

Convert

i

Mother wasn’t a Catholic,
but she spent a Universal Depression
among the good sisters.
Separated from her brothers,

she befriended a statue of Saint
Cecilia, aced the catechism,
took to her studies, outscoring
those born to the faith.

She excelled at choir,
practiced as religiously
as when her father taught her
clarinet, & prayer. Not the religious

“type,” she enjoyed time
spent in chapel anyway, away
from the others. She prayed
for her family, like Mary in exile.

ii

Mother wasn’t a Jew,
but she took a man of the Law
& bore him two nations,
Esau & Jacob.

She lived by the hanging gardens
of Puerto Rico, & sang
the songs of Zion in captivity,
after her lawyer left her. One day

her elder son came to her,
asking for his birthright. She argued
with him until he left again. The next day
her younger son came to her.

He had wrestled an angel, & now
the angel was heavy with child. She
blessed him, saying, have yourself three
daughters. Teach them three-part harmony.

iii

Mother wasn’t a Holy Roller.
She never subscribed to the Watchtower.
She never sent her money to a number
flashing at the bottom of the screen.

Mother wasn’t Hindu or Moslem.
Never covered her face or sacrificed
joss-sticks in the home, never took up
Taoism in midtown Manhattan.

Mother wasn’t an atheist.
She believed in Kodak instamatics,
Germanic operas at the Met,
& folk guitar on public television.

She believed in all-news radio.
She believed in her doctoral dissertation.
She believed in the Sunday Times’
crosswords & daily finger exercises.

Companion Piece

I wrote the poem “Convert” in a period of mourning. There was an earlier poem in which my mother “shuts down the engine, having exhausted her personal definition of history”; until she became seriously ill, she had never figured heavily in my writing. My mother’s story is unusual & commonplace, like anyone’s, but the oddly mythic assertions in “Convert” all have some basis in her life. Her idea of faith was at one with the discipline of playing music. She taught music for most of her life. She learned to fly planes. She also asked Allen Ginsberg to his face if there was any money in this poetry stuff.