Is it human?

Last night, a neo-Nazi tweeted me a picture
of SS officers measuring a man’s nose.
Another said, Just wait ‘til January — knock, knock,

knock. We’ll be putting all of you freaks in cages
soon enough. I thought of naming. How my father’s
Holocaust survivor friend and his wife would coo

over my sister. So blonde. An angel, they said.
No one would ever know. I was always the other
one. The Why would you name her that name?

Even then, even sandy-haired and grey-eyed,
I was the dark angel of my family. I thought
of my college boyfriend who dreamt he was

a camp guard. Who dreamt that he made
an exception. That I should feel lucky not to be
too Jewish. I thought of the philosophy of passing —

the discussions in ethics classes. Isn’t my moral
responsibility not to hide? Or if I do hide, to help
others? I thought of last night’s neo-Nazi who asked,

Is it human? Thought of the Jewish impulse to answer
a question with a question. The way my friends and I
used to joke, Whaddya mean, “what do I mean”?

Today, I had trouble being human. I spent an hour
studying the same bee gathering pollen from the same
dandelion. I watched her fill her pollen sacs, watched

her wipe each antenna clean in her gleaning.
I felt her good fortune at finding a fall flower.
I felt both of us slowing in the face of winter.