Whitechapel Tailor
(i.m. Emmanuel Freedman)
I crossed from ghetto to ghetto,
from Slavonic peasant hate
to the dumb goyisch cold shoulder.
Grandfather was under Russian earth
when I stole the leather boots
and set out through a sea of wheat
to find the unimaginable coast.
A German fed me; another set his dog.
I worked into winter chopping beet
with frozen fingers to earn my fare.
Stumbling off the boat in fog,
I met my half-forgotten father
in coldness on the dock.
Next day he led me up an alley
to the sweatshop door,
taught me to earn my keep.
I worked fourteen hours a day
as a tailor in a room like an oven.
When my work was wrong he rapped me
on the knuckles with a brass-edged rule.
But I stayed in that rat-trap
until I made garments good.
When I left the old man
there was art in my fingers,
English on my tongue,
the dawn of Red Russia
to answer all my prayers.
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