Born on Christmas Day
 

My parents were such
devoted worshippers,
I barely noticed
that I shared my birthday
with a much more famous
Jewish rebel.

My mother, a lesbian
but not a virgin,
started going into labor
at Loehmann's –

while the appearance
of a cashier, a sales clerk
and a gift wrapper
cannot compete with the arrival
of three wise men,
it was taken as a good sign
by my mother
whose highest spiritual goal
is not clarity,
but rather, clearance.

Twenty three years later
I married an escapee
from the Jehovah's Witness
protection program

We are raising three
bi-secular children
who came out to the world
on the day each of them
was born.