By Zoe Simone-Dobin

Come Friday night, she’d be standing at our doorstep with her big red purse. It would slosh, alive with the promise of glass after golden glass, the big bottle kissing two packs of Marlboro reds, the ones the doctor would have told her to throw away if she ever went to one. Each week, that faux leather, silver-buckled purse clanked at her hip, each week her scratchy laugh reverberated in my ear as she hugged me so tight my nostrils burned. Once, she announced that my dad was her favorite child in a scotch-stupor, after her husband recited the Kiddush. Her Sunday School childhood meant she only sort of knew what the words meant, only sort of knew Hebrew. Her sweaters were wool fibers sewn with smoke stitches, her breath bitter and malted. She had never believed in doctors; she still didn’t even when her liver began to ooze poison and all her tongue could truly taste was embers. Soon our living room smelled like nothing, and Friday nights no longer meant a red chemical purse. Once, she sewed a wardrobe of clothes for my American Girl Doll. Once, she taught me to bunny-knot my laces. Once, she stitched a purple baby blanket and wondered what I would become. 
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Zoe Simone-Dobin is an undergraduate student at The Pennsylvania State University, where she is majoring in veterinary and biomedical sciences and pursuing a minor in creative writing. Her poems delve into themes of family, and her Italian and Ashkenazi heritage.