Passover

A super moon looms magenta, and hovers like a bowling ball at the edge of our city street. Nothing’s normal anymore. My nephew in Brooklyn calls to say 750 people die daily. As we stare across virtual time, his pregnant wife bakes brownies; her figure a silhouette ghostly in the window behind him. Where did the Jews hide while barley fields, untended, hung heavy with first fruits, while mothers soaked hands in lambs’ blood, marked their doors, while God smote and smote? Today, we count the dead, wash, whisper, pass over, pass over.

Marita O'Neill