Two After George Bellows, by Barbara Krasner

The Cliff Dwellers, by George Bellows (USA) 1913

We, the Immigrants

Where have the wheat fields gone?
We huddle here with barely spit 
between us. We lean on each other
as our shtetl shacks once did.  

We are newcomers to the Lower East Side.

Where have the wheat fields gone?
The dirt we once sifted 
to grow our vegetables buries itself
on our skin and windowsills. 

Where have the wheat fields gone?
We cling to the Forverts and kugel like 
honey to apples. The streets
vibrate with clanging pans and Yiddish. 

We’ve risen above the wheat fields
in our multistory tenements. At least
that’s what we say when we long
for the familiar across the ocean.

Orchard and Delancey are now black
with our bodies, babies, and peddler carts.
We deposit hard-earned coins 
into tenement meters for light and heat.

We are here to stay on the Lower East Side.

Men of the Docks, by George Bellows (USA) 1911

My Grandfather’s Arrival, 1899

The SS Rotterdam steams into New York Harbor
from Rotterdam. Mendel rushes
to the deck from steerage to view
“The Lady” and her torch. 

Worry lines break through his chilled face.
Will he pass the medical tests? 
Will his brother, his sponsor, meet him on the dock?
Can he be successful in the Goldene Medina,
American streets paved with gold?

Can he learn this ferkokte English?
How will his elderly parents back in Borisov
fare without him?

Those workers, there on the dock.
Hunched over, cold, maybe hungry.
They bend, beg, while the skyscrapers rise.

Yet they are American men. 
American worker with a chance.
Mendel wants to be American, too.
He chooses a new name.

Max.

​Barbara Krasner

​Barbara Krasner holds an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Ekphrastic Review, Nimrod, Michigan Quarterly Review, Paterson Literary Review, Rust + Moth, and other journals. She lives and teaches in New Jersey, and can be found at www.barbarakrasner.com.