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Yiddish World

In Memory Of 9/11: A Picture Of September Twelfth

This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The poem, written in Yiddish by Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath, was translated by Zackary Sholem Berger.

A Picture of September Twelfth

In the spitefully
beautiful
day
you hung up
a thousand copies
of my beautiful
photo.
Extremely abridged
bio,
dry statistics,
kids on my lap.
My smile, eternally warm,
greeted all the
shocked commuters
who still had
somewhere to go.
You covered
every wall
and pole,
for your husband’s sake
made him
famous
for a moment.
But tell me, darling,
where did you think I had gone?

Read the original Yiddish poem here. From the collection “Sudden Rain.”

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