Sara Kaplan-Cunningham

YOM KIPPUR​

​

At noon, my mother drops two eggs on the blacktop

driveway. Then, in the non-stick pan, rubbed

down in oil. I am ravenous. My father talks

often of Alaska, where my sister was born,

where ravens stalk the sky in winter. My sister is not 

 

my mother’s daughter. She ate breakfast this morning. 

Later, she won’t swarm The Atlantic. She won’t watch 

the water fill with wilted lilies—ceremonial casualties. 

 

We—my mother and I—can rid ourselves of anything, anything. 

We throw out the broken shells and eat

nothing else all day.