Ruined

Miriam and I 
realizing she only understood the word “ruined”
when she pronounced it phonetically in her thick Sicilian accent 

roo-EE-ned

could not

stop 

laughing

In deep Covid we were

like magnets

cooking and arguing 

I am deeply comforted by other Italians yelling at me about 

how to cook and eat 

No one yells here

My nonno was stationed in Sicily

from Piemonte, in the more reserved North 

to “supervise” brothels 

Sounds like he had fun

One night in the kitchen

I told Miriam about how we were

uprooted from northern Italy, after 500 years 

during Mussolini’s fascism

I watched the loss hit her heart

Her broken Italy

She started wondering to me about her name, Miriam

a Jewish name 

She watched me light candles 

and do the the blessings

mesmerized

by my ancient thing

my unbroken thing

She taught me a hand gesture

mimicking heavy balls (like, testicles)

for when someone is being uptight

Very useful in Boston 

Last Shabbat

Sam was talking again about languages

Comparing Spanish and Italian  

I chimed in how phonetic Italian is 

He challenged me, I backed off 

People started pronouncing my name in their guess of Italian 

Instead of asking me how to pronounce 

my own name 

Or asking me anything 

I forgot about “roo-EE-ned” in the moment 

I’m laughing remembering it now

Sometimes we text each other that we are still laughing 

I’ll text her now  

Ruined

😂