Baltimore Sun

Simon Schuchat

there’s a passage in Mencken’s diaries —
now, I think Mencken’s a great writer —
so don’t take this wrong —
anyway, he describes a
somewhat large
immigrant Jewish family
down the street
and how they inspire
in him
powerful feelings of disgust

and the thing is
my great-grandfather lived on that street
in Baltimore
with all his sons and some of their wives
we have the census records
we know how many were employed,
and I know from my uncle
how proud they were
to have Mencken as a neighbor

but I guess
since he called his essays
Prejudices
there’s no call to be surprised
and anyway there could have been other Jews on the street

Ladowich Magazine is available in the Apple Newsstand — https://t.co/bhbBwDr0F9 — offering just enough poetry and one longread a month. This poem is part of the longread in issue six, a selection of fifteen works by Simon Schuchat. Issue six will arrive next week, in time to keep you company on your Thanksgiving travels.

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