Michele Herman
Michele Herman has two books coming out in 2022: her debut novel, Save the Village, and a poetry chapbook, Just Another Jack: The Private Lives of Nursery Rhymes. She lives in New York City.
— From November 2021Jewish Community Center Entrance, July 1971
It’s dark and I don’t feel / at all well and my mother / will soon arrive to take me / home and the overripe aroma / of the hedges with the tiny / white flowers is making me / want to throw up but I’m / not alone because a fellow / counselor-in-training, / my first friend who is a boy, / has left the camp sleepover / to wait with me
November 2021A Slip Of Paper
found amid the rolls / of gift wrap: / a Trader Joe’s receipt / from December 23rd / eight years ago
July 2021A Mitzvah In Paramus
On a soaking-wet August day I stood under an umbrella in a Jewish cemetery in Paramus, New Jersey. Though the man we were burying hadn’t been particularly observant, the service was Orthodox, and everyone followed protocol: the other women and I huddled to the side while the men lifted the heavy casket.
March 2008How The Winds Are Laughing
But adrenaline, my old friend from early motherhood, has come back to me, and I have taken up with her. I let myself be seduced by her charms, grab her hands for a tango, even though I know her game, the way she sticks around just long enough to see me through everyone else’s crises and then splits when I really need her.
July 2004