MY NEW FAMILY

by Mike Foldes

My new family exists in cyberspace.

They are not Facebook friends,

Or acquaintances I manage on MySpace,

But the genetic links a cousin

in London who has no children

of her own discovered in her search

for a longer lifeline.

Except for Aunt Betty and Uncle Don,

and their three children, we lost touch

with my mother’s side long ago.

After my grandparents and great uncle

Died one after another in the early ‘50s,

Two cousins in London and another

In Alabama were all we thought

Remained on my father’s side –

But for one who was said to have come

to New Jersey in the ‘30s

and made a fortune as a profiteer.

Until this chain of strangers

Came to be, that is.

I’d not recognize any of them

were we to pass one another
walking our dogs on a quiet street,

even if we stopped to chat a bit

about pets, politics or the weather.

I went with my son to the Holocaust Museum

In Washington a few years ago

And discovered the Hungarian town “Foldes”

Was one of several on the map

Of “disappeared” villages, confirming

What I’d always known --

That we are the last of the last.

An Hungarian I met in Greece

Who is from the same industrial city

My father was born in said

he didn’t know there were any Jews

in Miskolc.

“That’s because they died in the camps.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said.

I am, too.

Then the e-mails began arriving

That the childless London cousin

had tracked down the profiteer’s family.

One after another, new names and faces

were added to the tree on Geni.

I watched the leaves grow – and wondered,

“Who are these people?”

“What do they mean to me?”
Really, we have nothing in common.

We did not grow up playing at the beach,

Hunting, fishing, or hiking together.

Our parents did not play pinochle, canasta

Or bridge past midnight, slapping cards

Onto the picnic table at the Brogue camp

On Great Sacandaga Lake.

Our children were not invited

To their birthday parties, nor they

To ours. We did not exchange cards

On holidays, attend weddings,

Break bread at the same table,

Toast our elders on their 80^th birthdays,

Share our grief at funerals.

The London cousin catalyzed

A clan whose whereabouts

is bittersweet. Now we share memories

of events that could have happened

but never did, and see the meeting

of parallel lines

That solely exists in cyberspace.

MRF

11/22/09

This poem has been published in the print edition of the Patterson Literary Review, Volume 40

Mike Foldes is the founder and managing editor of Ragazine, an online literary magazine.

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Mike is also the author of Sleeping Dogs, A true story of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping
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