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Notes from a Cookbook
Bime'kom gilah, sham te'hei re'adah
"Where there is rejoicing, there should be trembling."

That was the summer your mother died.
Your father lost his wits, and the house
they built together began to rot. Bugs
made sawdust offerings on the living room floor.

That was the summer that summer forgot.
The corn didn't grow. The berries didn't ripen.
A bear fed her cubs on garbage and old boots.
You kept careful notes in the back of a cookbook—

recipes for sweetness and sorrow
from grandmother's time. Gratitude seemed
a foreign place you could ride to in a loose dress,

a place remembered from pilgrim knees,
the light that shines, the words that hover
on lovers' lips, the sound of wedding glass suddenly breaking.

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