Aaron Reeder
God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
from Genesis 2:3
Notes for Keeping the Sabbath in the ICU
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. It’s always been Pavlovian: A bell somewhere and you salivate. This new bell
is larger than the one you’ve been instructed to hear your whole life.
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2. Greet the Rabbi with a smile.
3. You get the question again. No, Rabbi, I am not a practicing Jew. Provide the same
backhanded joke: And I thought my father’s mind was failing.
4. Be polite and lower your head during the HaMotzi.
5. You want to help the nurses keep track of things, so you make note of the grape juice
bottle size to use as a reference. Later: your father’s colostomy bag fills, half bowel
content and half blood. Enough to fill the grape juice bottle.
6. You flatten bits of the blessed bread between thumb and finger so that your father
won’t choke as he works it down his throat. You are not surrendering if the rabbi helps
you with this part.
7.
Aaron Reeder writes from Albuquerque and holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of New Mexico. He is a recipient of the Rudolfo Anaya Fellowship, and his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Washington Square Review, Superstition Review, Literary Orphans, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Apeiron Review, Kudzu House Quarterly, Bitter Oleander, Black Tongue Review, The Great American Literary Magazine, and others. He is the author of the chapbook, DAWN (Orange Monkey Publishing, 2015).
Return to September 2017 Edition
from Genesis 2:3
Notes for Keeping the Sabbath in the ICU
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. It’s always been Pavlovian: A bell somewhere and you salivate. This new bell
is larger than the one you’ve been instructed to hear your whole life.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
- On Friday evenings, the hospital food service delivers a fist worth of Challah
2. Greet the Rabbi with a smile.
3. You get the question again. No, Rabbi, I am not a practicing Jew. Provide the same
backhanded joke: And I thought my father’s mind was failing.
4. Be polite and lower your head during the HaMotzi.
5. You want to help the nurses keep track of things, so you make note of the grape juice
bottle size to use as a reference. Later: your father’s colostomy bag fills, half bowel
content and half blood. Enough to fill the grape juice bottle.
6. You flatten bits of the blessed bread between thumb and finger so that your father
won’t choke as he works it down his throat. You are not surrendering if the rabbi helps
you with this part.
7.
Aaron Reeder writes from Albuquerque and holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of New Mexico. He is a recipient of the Rudolfo Anaya Fellowship, and his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Washington Square Review, Superstition Review, Literary Orphans, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Apeiron Review, Kudzu House Quarterly, Bitter Oleander, Black Tongue Review, The Great American Literary Magazine, and others. He is the author of the chapbook, DAWN (Orange Monkey Publishing, 2015).
Return to September 2017 Edition