Fragments from a Nonexistent Yiddish Poet
Ida Lewin (1906–1938)
AlwaysWinter, Poland
20.
I’ve heard that Polish wives
cook beets into a broth
that bleeds, as though from hemorrhage.
They fill white bowls
with dumplings pressed into the shape
of shrunken ears, their thumbs
molding pastry to look
like lobe and auricle. Awful,
to hear one’s own devouring
before it comes.
Consider ears.
They know the scrape
that metal makes inside the bowl—
pale cochleae, so vulnerable
they float across the soup,
poor things, that cannot seal
themselves against the sound but roll,
ears swirling past a spoon.
I wonder at this meal
for cannibals.
With such an audience below,
who wouldn’t lose the taste for dough?
