Recipe for Peace in the Middle East/ poem by Erica Marks

Forage for two mothers, one Palestinian,
one Israeli, each who has lost a child to the other side.

Swallow hard.

Take a large sheet pan, the size of a desert.
Sift the fine sand to remove stones. Erect tents. Build mud huts.

Spray your desert with water from a desalination plant.
Remove all tears.

Compare hummus recipes and argue whether to add
one-quarter or one-half cup of tahini.
Discuss the difference between za’atar and sumac.

Press the mothers until their arguments fill one another’s cups.
Measure your own cup.

Blend until consistency of smooth avocado.

Bake in the hot sun.
Turn around. Face the other direction.

Turn up the heat taking care not to scorch the mothers’ skirts.

Ask the mothers to make one another’s hummus recipe.
Drizzle olive oil. Do not tell the children or the fathers.

Crack open a pomegranate.
Let the magenta juice stain your lips.

Discard the empty pomegranate shell.
Sprinkle bright red paprika while holding a new baby.

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Erica Marks is a writer and retired fundraiser living in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her work recently appeared in The Poetry Distillery (a project of The Academy of Intentional Magic), Club Plum, and Sense & Sensibility Haiku. She is currently finalizing What Comes After, a book of poems about life as a new widow, which offers an often-humorous reflection on life and loss. It is anchored by the poem “Inheritance,” which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.