by Annette Friend (Del Mar, CA)
I was raised to anticipate catastrophe.
Our kitchen table overflowed
with piles of food, dinners began
with appetizers, a half-cantaloupe,
or half yellow grapefruit,
a bowl of chicken soup
packed with carrots, celery and meat,
schnitzel, potatoes, green beans as main course,
apple cinnamon coffee cake for dessert.
I was fattened up before the next famine
could start. Maybe tomorrow?
My mother’s hands always busy cooking,
teaching me I would never starve,
like she had in Poland, not here in America.
Every night after dinner,
my mother and I watched T.V. news.
Her blue owl eyes on constant alert,
muttering under shallow breaths,
“Is this bad for the Jews?”,
worried we’d be removed from
another promised land once again.
I was raised to know that within every
celebration lived a kernel of catastrophe,
like the fragile glass required to be broken
at the end of a joyous wedding,
reminding us of bitter disasters in the past.
I was raised with my mother’s fears tangled
around my unripe heart, my small hands,
afraid to untie the red ribbon of my future
already anticipating the catastrophe
coiled within the sparkling tissue paper,
waiting to be awakened, waiting to strike.
Annette Friend, a retired occupational therapist and elementary school teacher, taught both Hebrew and Judaica to a wide range of students. In 2008, she was honored as the Grinspoon-Steinhardt Jewish Educator of the Year from San Diego. Her work has been published in The California Quarterly, Tidepools, Summation, The San Diego Poetry Annual, The Jewish Writing Project, and the Paterson Literary Review. In August 2025, Annette along with artist Judy Langhoff published a book of ekphrastic poetry and paintings titled Pen and Brush: In Contemplation. She was honored to be chosen for third prize for her poem, “The Salvation of Books, Newark, N.J., 1959” in the 2026 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards.
