Challah

by Miriam Flock (Palo Alto, CA)

My hands fondle the dough, as a lover 

might a breast. From this touch

Challah rises—my creation. 

If it were the same each week

—so many and so many cups of flour, 

a dash of salt, and behold, a standard loaf 

manufactured like a car part—

the bread would be a lesser offering.

A gift to God must bear a human mark:

the bursting seams of an under-proofed braid, 

the occasional char. And then the interplay

of dough and world—the size of the eggs,

the warmth of the kitchen, the age of the leaven.  

When I nip off a piece and say the blessing, 

I praise the God who brings forth bread 

from the Earth. But challah is collaboration.  

Bodiless, the Lord cannot make it, nor can I

without the bounty of His imaginary hands.

Miriam’s work has previously been published in Poetry, Berru, Salmagundi, CCAR, and other journals.  She was the winner of the 2019 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award for poems on the Jewish experience.  Her chapbook, “The Scientist’s Wife,” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2021.