by Cecilia WolochSometimes when I wipe the bowl with my bread when I scramble one egg, two eggs, with milk when I stir the kasha until it's thick when I sit at the table and bow my head I think of how my father ate how he bowed his head—though he didn't pray at least not in the usual way of grace but always that posture over his plate of supplication, gratitude— the hungry shoulders of the boy who'd stuffed his mouth with pulled grass once who never got over that there was enough Sometimes I wipe the bowl with my bread Sometimes I feed his ghost this prayer
