I am writing to the
Chinese Association for the Study
of Jewish literature

They have asked for the addresses
of a couple of other Jews
Ozick and Kazin to be specific

Of course there are hundreds
probably thousands now alive
writing in Spanish and Portugese

Russian    even German    the great languages
of nations into whose histories
we were admitted and began almost

immediately to talk    exclaim    praise
make metaphor    despair    raise children
ask questions of the authorities

in their own tongue!    succeed    multiply
and finally be driven out

They say a thousand Jews fled Bombay
in the 12th century    traveled to
Kaifeng City to live in the center

of China    to live    to live    ah    into
the generations they disappeared
in the terrible Yahweh-defying act
of assimilation