(Written for this year's SFPA Halloween Poetry Reading.)

The Golem of Red Bean Paste

Ah yuh weh and Oy!
have equal play at our house, and
what else is there to say
to a linebacker-shaped
blur of mashed adzuki
that's just destroyed the toolshed?
I know - all mothers
should have a son
who loves to study so much.
And so inventive - I'll kvell about that
some other year, once I've calmed down.
But in the meantime - oy! and ay yu weh!
From what I hear, the usual way
that boys his age try to dodge their chores
is to drag their feet
or concoct simpleminded lies
or bribe gullible siblings, so
I admit I'm a little bit pleased
he at least tried to make something
out of what he could get his hands on.
But like every other ah seh nudnik
too blinded by his cleverness
to picture what could go wrong,
he didn't imagine
for even a second
not being able
to reach the words to turn things off.
But his father's laughing as he blasts
the aleph away with the garden hose -
a move so clearly the result of much practice,
I'll have to ask the man what he cooked up
when he was Jeremiah's size. It's gonna be months
before I can face a mooncake again. But even as
I mutter this to myself, I hear the phrase,
haunted-house mud-wrestling slide across the yard.
Boys. I don't know where they come from, even when I do.