Image: For the Child Who is Unable to Inquire, Thou Shalt Explain the Whole Story of Passover (Seder plate). Harriete Estel Berman. Steel, tin, plexiglas, sterling silver, brass. Yeshiva University Museum.

–

A Newborn Girl at Passover
by Nan Cohen

Consider one apricot in a basket of them.
It is very much like all the other apricots–
an individual already, skin and seed.

Now think of this day. One you will probably forget.
The next breath you take, a long drink of air.
Holiday or not, it doesn’t matter.

A child is born and doesn’t know what day it is.
The particular joy in my heart she cannot imagine.
The taste of apricots is in store for her.

–

[Poem from The Prentice Hall Anthology of Women’s Literature Edited by Deborah H. Holdstein, 1999]