Goodbye Matzah For Another Year
Goodbye matzah for another year.
Goodbye to your frail, cracking, and yeastless skin.
For eight days, we tried to smother your barren being with butter, honey, smoked oysters or fried with eggs and covered with maple syrup.
And yet, beneath each bite, the sandy desert of our hurried escape.
Goodbye matzah for another year.
You're a frisbie that wouldn't fly, a kite with no string, a flag of our impoverished disposition.
You remind me of my father's pale legs, a widow's blank face, the empty pages of a bank book.
Goodbye matzah for another year.
We find your crumbs everywhere, in shirt pockets, in woven carpet, underneath tables.
You're an embarassment like dandruff.
Go away matzah, good riddance, for another year.
I can't bear to eat or see you.
Stay away.
I'll miss you until I see you again.
--Jim Perlman, (c) 2009
That was really touching.
ReplyDeleteThere aren't enough poems about Matzah! This one fills a great need.
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