News on the street reminds me
of something I’ve always known:
my family which has been in the city
for generations
also lost generations
in the old country
in the war.

In the Holocaust.

In my immediate clan
there are four Berger boys
to carry on the family name.
All the others are children.

I am the only child-rearing one available
at this point
and for all my life
I have tanked it.

I have been a bad heterosexual
inactive and frightened
naive and unstable
unable to get things done
but I have also been unengaged
in increasing the population.

But now I am looking through another lens:
Repopulating Jews.
Repopulating Bergers.
I have been derelict
and time is running short.

I do not know what I can do
to change my errant ways.
Are there red states, perhaps,
looking for spare breeders
of weird stock?