by lenore weiss
For her 100th birthday
my aunt wore an orange ruffle. Now she’s gone,
photographs on the walls,
earth-tone paintings, the same shade
as a coverlet thrown across her king-sized bed
where I watch cooking programs
until I fall asleep,
holed up in her town-house
near the Catalina Mountains,
two suitcases and a computer,
an escapee on the run.
By some small grace,
on New Year’s Day,
I find a letter from my mother
addressed to my Aunt Elsie.
Mom sticks to her story:
First, let me give you my recipe …
Everyone praised my mother’s cake,
strong coffee and honey
as amber as the windows of a synagogue
with eggs enough for a big breakfast,
cinnamon and cloves, raisins, butter,
sweetness to celebrate the Jewish New Year.
On the same day you sent
a text asking how to cook rice,
a simple thing when you know how to do it:
water measured in cups or joints of the finger,
grains rinsed beneath the faucet,
a rattle like the sound of the ocean’s undertow
pulling us apart.
Lenore Weiss is the author of two poetry collections: “Cutting Down the Last Tree on Easter Island” (2012) and “Two Places” (2014). A member of Kehilla Community Synagogue, she teaches writing and lives in Oakland. www.lenoreweiss.com
Works may be submitted to fiction editor Ilana DeBare at [email protected] or poetry editor Joan Gelfand at [email protected]. Fiction excerpts may run up to 2,500 words, but only 800 words will appear in the print edition, with the rest appearing online. All prose and poetry published to date can be viewed at jweeklylit.wordpress.com.