by Susan Kress (Saratoga Springs, NY)
My aunt died
in the age of letters
and no one told my grandmother
for fear the news would strike her dead.
She couldn’t read
a word of English and
my aunt lived
in another country
so it was easy to lift sentences
from old airmail letters and pretend
she was still alive.
Years before, when my aunt
had married out of the faith
that no one practiced,
the family mourned.
They chanted prayers, sat on low seats,
folded her away
in a locked drawer—
and for seven years,
until her son was born—pretended
she was dead.
Susan Kress, granddaughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland, was born and educated in England and now lives in Saratoga Springs, New York. Her poems appear in Nimrod International, The Southern Review, New Ohio Review, Salmagundi, New Letters, South Florida Poetry Journal, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Third Wednesday, La Presa, and other journals. Her poems have been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
The Jewish Writing Project 
I write a great amount of Jewish poetry- many have been published and my second book will come out in 2026. Can I submit to this? Let me know what kinds of poetry you want… Rabbi Michal Mendelsohn (Mikki)
Love the line “married outside her faith that no one practiced” – truly embodies that generation trying to assimilate in nearly every way, except dating and marriage. And the hypocrisy was lost on them.
Send your poems to bruceblack @ ymail dot com. I’m happy to take a look.
Wow. Beautiful and powerful.
This poem powerfully captures the complexity of life lived in relation to a culture defined by rules honored both in the breach and the performance. The pain of a mother who considers her daughter dead while alive and alive while dead gets into my heart.
Heartbreaking & heart-wrenching. The last 2 lines gutted me.