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When I first moved to Minneapolis, I taught Mandarin at a big city high school where many of my students were recent immigrants from South Asia. I was especially close to a boy from Laos, a boy full of laughter and jokes, intensely smart and talented, who longed for his home country. He used to tell me stories about its beauty, the colors and fruits and simplicity of his life there despite a near-total lack of money. Once he told me that when he was sick, his mother would feed him a precious egg to help him get better.

A single egg.

All these years since, I’ve thought of my student and that story. As I sit here in my kitchen, where I cook myself two eggs nearly every day, I’m thinking of him again.

Ghost Hunger, by Cecilia Woloch

Sometimes when I wipe the bowl with my bread
when I scramble one egg, two eggs, with milk
when I stir the kasha until it’s thick
when I sit at the table and bow my head
I think of how my father ate
how he bowed his head—though he didn’t pray
at least not in the usual way of grace
but always that posture over his plate
of supplication, gratitude—
the hungry shoulders of the boy
who’d stuffed his mouth with pulled grass once
who never got over that there was enough
Sometimes I wipe the bowl with my bread
Sometimes I feed his ghost this prayer

Click here for more information about Cecilia Woloch.

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My podcast: Words by Winter