From the lowly potato you get the choicest latke.
If one is fated to drown, a spoonful of water will do.
Make sure to send a lazy man for the Angel of Death.
When a poor man eats a chicken, one or the other is sick.

If one is fated to drown, a spoonful of water will do.
Don’t ask the doctor, ask the patient.
When a poor man eats a chicken, one or the other is sick.
A child is born with clenched fists and man dies with open hands.

Don’t ask the doctor, ask the patient.
With money in your pocket, you are wise and you are handsome and you sing well too.
A child is born with clenched fists and man dies with open hands.
An hour in the Garden of Eden is also good.

With money in your pocket, you are wise and you are handsome and you sing well too.
Don’t make yourself so big.  You are not so small.
An hour in the Garden of Eden is also good.
After the ecstasy, the laundry (Jewish Zen).

Don’t make yourself so big.  You are not so small.
In the fiddler’s house, everyone dances!
After the ecstasy, the laundry (Jewish Zen).
Sleep faster, we need the pillows.

In the fiddler’s house, everyone dances!
From the lowly potato you get the choicest latke.
Sleep faster, we need the pillows.
Make sure to send a lazy man for the Angel of Death.

Rochelle Nameroff was born in Wisconsin, educated at the Universities of California and Iowa, and is a teacher, editor, writer, music lover, and feeder of the feral cats who live under her house.
*Originally published in The Iowa Review,  Vol. 26, No. 3, 1996.