Ammunition
Shirley Adelman
My mother was stuffing me with kasha,
digging deep inside chickens
for iron rich, baby eggs,
retrieved like nuggets of gold,
to "fix me up," as she would say,
"protect me"
from the ravages of history, the bayonet
and boot, beating down on Jewish kinder,
before their bones burned clean
like sparrows tossed aflame.
Shirley Adelman's work has been published in a number of journals, including Jewish Affairs, Canadian Woman Studies, Blue Collar Review, 13th Moon, Lilliput Review, The Aurorean, Cotyledon, and Kaleidoscope. Her story "My Mother's Eyes" received Honorable Mention in the Dora Teitelboim Center for Yiddish Culture's Fifth Annual Jewish Cultural Writing Contest and will be published by Jewish Currents. Ms. Adelman is the mother of two adult children whose company she treasures.
