Accepted applicant for resettlement on the Hightstown project. Jewish-American. Carpenter.

Brina Novogrebelsky

If I could I would kiss this photo.

Glasses and slightly dirty hands

adding to the appeal.

I like his curly hair, obviously.

This is a man I would fall for.

I’d be desperately in love with him.

Disgustingly in love.

Stupid, obvious

infatuation.

Except he would not tell me,

“You’re so mature for your age,

I can’t believe you’re only eighteen,”

as so many grown men have told me before.

He would

uncomfortably,

awkwardly,

slipping past me without touching me,

reject my advances.

He looks like he’s doing Dorothea Lange a favor,

talking to her,

letting her photograph him.

But deep down,

I know he appreciates this moment of respite.

He’s a laborer.

This man needs a break.

This man does not fantasize about girls in school uniforms.

He needs a woman.

I suppose that’s why I cannot stop fantasizing about him —

because I want to be a woman.

I want my feminine wiles

to affect men who use straight razors.

Not boys whose voices still crack.

Where would I be in 1936?

Which Diaspora?

Poland?

New Jersey?

These are a couple of my options.

Others include, but are not limited to,

Brazil, Argentina, South Africa.

“Who says Jews can’t farm,”

remarks a comrade

of the Hightstown Project,

New Jersey.

My man says,

“Will we succeed?

Any people who will go through what we did --

any people with such patience --

will succeed.”

Thank you, Dorothea Lange,

for the three of fifteen photos of Jewish Americans

in Yale’s archives

of the Farm Security Administration’s photo project promoting governmental

relief

programs.

Depression Era.

P.S. Do you think he would like me if I were his age?