I might have been a Goldhirsch – golden stag in Yiddish

or a Morganstern – morning star in German –

beauty, beauty – is it the translations

or objects that glow?

 

Or shared a surname with Boris, been

a Pasternak – parsnip in assorted Slavic tongues,

from the Latin pastinaca. Then, when I read

Dr Zhivago, I would have felt a kinship

To the great love and tragedy.

 

I grew up with dozens of Shapiros – Freddie, Margot –

and never knew they were lovely in Aramaic –

Margot is lovely, but she did marry into the name.

 

I could have had a practical assignation:

Cooper for cabinet-maker, Sobol for fur trader,

Sokol for falconer, Zimmerman for carpenter,

Kleid for tailor or Haber for one who sold oats

in the vast Ashkenazi firmament. 

 

Kranz made wreaths, big in ancient Greece 

and prominent in Christian traditions so 

I’m not sure why we have a whole name 

devoted to them. I guess someone had to make them.

 

If I were a Blum, I would represent the flower –

a Mandel, the almond or someone living near

an almond tree. Perhaps a Feigenbaum – fig tree 

in Hebrew. Nature makes its presence known.

 

I have Stein cousins. Their ancestors might have

lived near a prominent stone or worked

their fingers to the bone as stonecutters.

Were I a Zingel – and I have never met one –

 

my clan would have lived near

the outermost wall of a castle,

the defensive wall, which doesn’t bode well

for survival in a battle. I have never met one.

 

Were I Freud, I would be an emblem of joy

except no one would believe it, as I would

be constantly interpreting their weird dreams

and making sexual assumptions.

 

No one would think how happy I make them. 

Of course, all these names would signal

that I am a Jew, in lieu of the name

my parents chose at the Canadian border,

 

when Henry Ford was everyone’s boss.

They selected an English name worn

by Jews and gentiles in Detroit.

We are not related to any of them

 

and though I choose not to pass, 

my name says, pass.