Boiled Beet

By Anna Swanson

Each seder is a retelling.
We come together and taste our way
through the story: Matzo,
unleavened because fleeing women
can't wait for bread to rise;
Charoset, the mortar used
to bind stone together;
Bitter herbs, the taste of slavery.

She passes me the hagaddah
and I read out loud about the shank bone,
the blood which marked the doors
of Jewish houses with a message
to the angel of death
saying, "spare this home".

This year we used a cooked beet
instead, smear beet juice on doorposts
and white picket fences.

I want to run around the city
with a boiled beet, mark the skin
of women everywhere, screaming
may this body
this body
this body
be spared.