
EATING OSSI DI MORTI ON NOVEMBER 2
All Souls Day far from Sicily
we watched Sicilian children on RAI TV News
clutch little plastic bags of ossi di morti
as they hold their parents’ hands on the way to cemeteries
Today here in Philadelphia here in the USA
we buy our ossi di morti at the bakery
white hard cookies bones of the dead
made of almond paste, flour, sugar, lemon juice, and cloves
in the shape of femurs, ulnas, and skulls
we dunk them in espresso
we dunk them in wine
we dunk them in tea
remember our dear departed
Nonna told us to pray for and to our dead always
they were looking out for us
Nonna told us if we prayed for and to our dead on November 1
the next morning they would bring ossi di morti
and maybe a little money, too
Nonna said when she was a child in Sicily
her dear dead never failed to bring her
a bone cookie and a coin on November 2
even when they hardly had enough to eat
We dunk our ossi di morti to soften the hardness of our lives
with the memories of our dead.
Maria Famà is the author of eight books of poetry. Her work appears in numerous publications and has been anthologized. Famà has read her poetry in many cities across the United States, read one of her stories on National Public Radio, co-founded a video production company, and recorded her poetry for CD compilations of music and poetry. Maria Famà did her undergraduate and graduate work in History at Temple University. She appears in the film documentaries “Prisoners Among Us,” “Pipes of Peace,” and “La Mia Strada: My Way” reading her poems. She was awarded the Aniello Lauri Award in Creative Writing in 2002 and 2005. In 2006 she was awarded the Amy Tritsch Needle Award for Poetry. In 2018, Famà won second prize in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards. Her latest books of poems are: The Good for the Good, published by Bordighera Press in 2019; Other Nations: an animal journal, published by Pearlsong Press in 2017, and Mystics in the Family published in 2013 by Bordighera Press. Maria Famà lives and works in Philadelphia. www.mariafama.com
di Maria Famà