Chulent

Funny how expressions
Transcend acculturation.

“Ret zi di vant?”
Poppy’s favorite line for Hadasa who was
Slaving away, dicing potatoes for the
Chulent, which
Tasted of poverty and necessity,
Spiced with labor and patience.

“It’s like talking to a wall,” he would
Translate for me.
But who could talk to walls and have them answer back?
And if they did, what would they even say?
The Chulent gurgled in the crockpot.

There was a wall in Birkenau that
Spoke to me of generations transcended into the sky as
Smoke, which would tear to the soil,