Rice Cakes – Steph Ellen Feeney

The day Grandmother dies, I’m reading
about Baek-il, the Korean celebration of the one-
hundredth day in the life of a baby, marked
with rice cakes and wine. If the rice cakes
are shared with one hundred people, the baby
will live a long life. You are six months old
the day Grandmother dies. One hundred
and eighty-three days of two lives never meeting.
I didn’t write enough letters. I didn’t send enough
pictures. There are not enough rice cakes in the world,
or people to share them with. The mist hangs low
in Chianti the day Grandmother dies, and I feel
the blanket of her upon me. She would have
knitted it piecemeal, a Psalm on her lips.

Steph Ellen Feeney lives and writes in Suffolk.  Her poems have appeared in The Poetry Review and Ink Sweat & Tears.  She serves on the board of Art for Human Rights.  You can find her @stephellenfeeney on Instagram.