Gefilte Fish
Those glassy, frozen eyes
stare at her once a year
as she washes the head
gills still suffused with blood
lifeless tail
skin glistening
It must be done
Tradition
She needs the bones, heads,
leftovers to line the
bottoms of the pots to make
those old-world staples
fish balls
colorless, naked dumplings
part of her hand-me-down
bag of culinary rituals
Taste it
Home made, not from a jar
A little beet horseradish on the side
You like it?
What’s not to like?
Her mother had scraped scales,
dissected, chopped
and chopped,
that old wooden bowl
cradled in her arms
as she sat on a kitchen stool,
for years the recipe a guarded secret
the results a symbol to her family
reaffirming her role,
only before her death
did she allow
her daughter to be present
at the ancient rite
Oh whitefish, trout, and pike
Did you ever have a mother?
And she
watched
translated the
“pour in a little matzo meal”
“not too much water”
“taste it raw, not too much salt”
into history and then
passed it on to her own daughter
a slight twinge of envy when
they emerged as good as hers
So once a year
she digs her hands into the
smelly, gooey, cold mixture
to remember her mother’s gift
the sharing
But
she can’t bear those lifeless orbs
so taking her thumb
she plucks them out