instead

when Jon comes home, I wear my unhappiness like a new blouse and he notices first thing. only this time, he will not ask why. he will instead pick up his suitcase and go back into the cold from where he came.

i will sit and count my memories like change in my pockets.

.all.the.world's.a.kitchen. .all.the.men.and.women.merely.ingredients.

Wouldn't it be nice, you might not have thought to yourself, if Jews were made of nothing more than sugar and flour, cinnamon and vanilla.

As they were lined up in the oven, one asks the other,
אחותי, את חושבת שאולי קצת חם מדי?

An image of Hitler forms in the rising smoke, with a milk moustache whitewashing his face and an umlaut over his head, pushing forward his backmost vows.

And if he starts to feel queasy and sick about the whole affair, he remembers that he's nothing more than rotten cabbage on the inside, the most productive crop per acreage in terms of mass.
He remembers he will be shredded and pickled and, in time, be nothing more than a small bowl of kimchi.

And on it goes, he now says to you, with an immaculate posture of deference and defence: we chew up those who precede us and become nothing more than fuel for those to come.

So he rests easy, even if you may not, as the smell of golden brown snickerdoodles pump fatly through the kitchen into his tempestuous nostrils.