Am I? — A poem for Torah Portion Bereshit

Am I my brother’s keeper?
-Genesis 4:9

Am I supposed to admit what I did?
Am I responsible if no one saw?

Am I really starting this whole book over?
Am I cancelled?

Am I in trouble for reading brother when
sisters hadn’t been invented when this was written?

Am I wearing the right clothes
for wandering the earth forever?

Am I touching the right keys?
Am I singing the right note?

Am I prepared for the forthcoming
crimes of our first family?

Am I the one who has to bear
responsibility for what they did?

Am I wasting electricity? How about water?
Am I too angry when I’m put on hold?

Am I the one with the taste
of the forbidden fruit on my tongue.

Am I making a fruit salad
with forbidden fruit?

Am I responsible for feeding
forbidden fruit salad to others?

Am I keeping my brother
longer than he wants?

Am I supposed to set him free?
Am I doing enough to make sure

everyone is free?
Am I?

Los Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 25 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express” (Poems written in Japan – Ain’t Got No Press, August 2020) and edited the anthologies “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.