Hebrew Word for Vegetarian

Cholent: potatoes, carrots, egg tucked in lamb.
I think of veal, this lamb.

Close quarters in the women’s balcony, where she is
Bleating for a false rubber mother

swatting my leg. She is not my ma, my Ima, my
knee fur matted from kneeling on

lace with small holes to see through,
holes so small that

gender can’t be seen, where
there is no light, where

we are swaying to the daven, where
there is no standing lamb

wrapped in teffilin, we move to the darkness,
boxed in tradition

Canter’s tender version of Torah, G-d’s word,
and this lamb succumbs to Kiddush.

By Shoshana Tehila Surek

Biography:

I am a first-generation American and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, which informs all of my work. I received my MA and MFA in Creative Writing from Regis University. My essays, short stories, flash fiction, and poetry, can be read or are forthcoming in Carve Magazine, december Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, Malahat Review, Vestal Review, Cease, Cows, 3Elements Review, and f(r)iction Magazine. In 2017, I was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and I am a 2019 Curt Johnson Prose Award finalist. More of my work can be found at www.ShoshanaSurek.com.