IDOLATRY

from Jersey Breaks: Becoming an American Poet

ROBERT PINSKY

My grandfather Dave Pinsky’s disregard for the practice of Judaism as a religion was so calm and perfect that he didn’t seem to express his feelings about piety and rabbi-craft except implicitly, by living his profane life. Without warning, Zaydee Pop sometimes showed up at our Rockwell Avenue apartment and announced that I would not be going to school that day. He would be taking me to New York with him, to keep him company on a business trip. My mother, his great opponent, did not put up much of a fight. Their combative relationship came up in a question about one of my favorite old pictures, a studio photograph of Dave as a well-dressed young thug, handsome in an apelike way, posed with his beautiful young bride, Rose. She is standing…

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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, September/October 2022

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