Tag Archives: mamaloshen

March 20, 2023 · 6:30 am

Hineni

by Jane Hillson Aiello (Denver, CO)

Raised between the transom

Of women’s lib and balabusta

No chance for ritual

No push to excel

No college application

Instead, a cross country trip

In Chevy’s version of a Conestoga

Landing in foothills

A place beyond knowing

Mamaloshen faded

Who am I      who am I

Echoed in the valley

My mother died before my poetic voice sprouted

Even though it was she who helped plant the seed

I will see her again one day

Beyond the heavens

In a field of fresh mown grass

She’ll be leaning on her Fairlane 500

As blue as the Colorado Sky

A scarf around her reed thin neck

Jackie O sunglasses

Cigarette in her right hand

I will call out to her in the ancient language

Of daughters

I am here mom 

Right here

Jane Hillson Aiello is a lifelong intuitive poet. Raised in a loosely conservative Jewish family in the suburbs of New York City, she calls the Front Range of Colorado home for more than forty years.  She also writes essays and memoir vignettes. Jane leads poetry workshops for Kavod on the Road and other organizations in the Denver metro. She has four poems featured in the soon to be released anthology Unplugged Voices. 125 Tales of Art and Life from Northern New Mexico, the Four Corners and The West.  Jane is a member of Poetry Society of Colorado. Read more of her work on her blog:  Poetry, Prose and Prattle 

Author’s notes: Hineni – Here I am; Balabusta – a good housewife; Mamaloshen – Mother tongue

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November 30, 2020 · 2:54 pm

Kissing in Mamaloshen

by Leslie Neustadt (Niskayuna, NY) 

        After Kissing in Vietnamese by Ocean Vuong

Grandma Freda kisses as if she could 

protect me with her crimson tattoo. 

She seals my ears with endearments, Lesincoo.

She kisses my smooth hands, my fingers meant 

to turn pages, not sew in sweat shops. 

She kisses as if each kiss were a kush fun lebn.

As if her kisses meant I’d be passed over 

by plagues. No pogroms, no gas chambers, 

no yellow stars—if only she kisses me enough.

She calls me shana madela. Her kisses drops 

of honey, but they put meat on my bones. You’re too 

skinny. She kisses as if her kisses could inoculate 

me from sticks and stones, No Jews Allowed.

Her sugar cookies, apple cake, dill-scented 

chicken soup are kisses too. When Grandma 

Freda kisses, she inhales my little girl scent, 

makes me feel like sunlight. She sits in her pew 

on Shabbas waiting for me. Plants a buss on my cheek.

I glint with her imprint. Grandma Freda kisses 

with her full bosom, her skinny legs pulsing 

rivers of blue. Her kisses a map to follow 

when my body fades. Now, I paint my lips 

crimson, make red tattoos with my wrinkled 

lips on the grandchildren bequeathed to me.

Poet, writer and visual artist Leslie Neustadt is a retired New York Assistant Attorney General and board member of The International Women’s Writing Guild. The author of Bearing Fruit: A Poetic Journey, Leslie’s work is illuminated by her Jewish upbringing and expresses her experiences as a woman, daughter, wife, mother and cancer patient. You’re invited to visit her online at www.LeslieNeustadt.com.

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