Elegy Poem: For the New York City Knish, by Kenneth DiMaggio

Fist-size dough packet that
Ashkenazim packed with them
into steerage from Kiev or Karkov:
it begins with a hard “K”

Hard like the kicks New York City
gave me after moving there with
a Graduate School hangover
to become a great writer

Still hadda eat and whether
Times Square or Alphabet City always
a street cart with that steamy
potato-filled packet that only cost a buck

food that Moses probably
fed his people while bringing
them across the desert

Food that Mary and Jospeh
packed when they had to flee
with their little Jesus into Egypt
(hey they were Jewish too)

and now staple for poets artists
musicians & other criminals couch-
surfing or squatting like me in the
1980s’ Lower East Side: Yup
we were all eating Knishes

we: this unnamed tribe
could always scrape up a dollar

just like we could a bug-infested
futon for a night
and in the morning if lucky
a shower