Sometimes when I slip the
slim forearm of my daughter
between my teeth, my two large
front incisors pressing gently
for a little love bite,
I think about
the mothers who ate their children.
A stew of the soft space where
skull bone was still forming.
A hearty mix of pudgy thigh
and tiny toes. How famished
these women of the temple
must have been to fill their
empty bellies with the empty
bellies of their starved children
as death and destruction
ensnared their besieged city.
Did they bring that meal
of cooked child to their lips
with a blessing? Did they praise
the G-d that brought about their
most brutal response to devastation?
Or did they lament?
Strike their chests with the same
hand that fed themselves
the souls of their Jewish children.
And where are our children now?
Who keeps these red-headed
babies from the love bite of their
now wrecked mother?
Would she have swallowed
them to keep them safe, harbor them
inside of her until the temple mount
is no longer smoldering?
Which of us mothers would not
eat our children whole to save them?
What is the blessing one says
before devouring their child?
Tell the mothers and we will recite it
over and over and over and over.
Tell us quickly before there is nothing left
but to pick their doll-sized bones
from our teeth, the Grace After Meals
still heavy on our desiccated lips.
The mothers will extol you.
Oh G-d of IsraelLit. ''the one who struggles with God.'' Israel means many things. It is first used with reference to Jacob, whose name is changed to Israel (Genesis 32:29), the one who struggles with God. Jacob's children, the Jewish people, become B'nai Israel, the children of Israel. The name also refers to the land of Israel and the State of Israel.,
the mothers. the mothers. the mothers.
