We all have our crazy parent things. I was okay with tv and sugar, but not with winners and losers. Although I was not the kind of parent with endless important messages, I told Noah many times that winning and losing was an idea I didn’t want him to believe.

People prefer
winners and losers.
Maccabees rising
against Greeks. In good
stories, the underdog wins.
I don’t like winners
and losers. When my son
was little I bought
A Unitarianish game.
Snails moved in equal circles.
I was one snail.
He was another.
He always tried to win.

Author’s Note: Some years ago when we were both teaching at Parsons School of Design, Matthew Septimus and I decided to collaborate. Our intention was to capture holy people and holy places, all that transcended the ordinary, with his pictures and my words. Over the years we began to consider our project as a kind of prayer, how prayers would be if they were pictures and poems. This is one of an eight-part series titled Postcards for Hanukkah.