In her last posts, Melis­sa Broder con­duct­ed a Jew­ish vs. Goy­ish lit­mus test” for the year in review, shared the B‑Sides of her forth­com­ing When You Say One Thing but Mean Your Moth­er (Feb. 6), imag­ined being in Hebrew School with John Stew­art, Bob Dylan, and Rahm Emanuel, and wrote her pen pal Esther Schwebel.

Dear god,

Help me remem­ber to approach you laugh­ing, like our friend Tevye the milk­man.

Researchers are inves­ti­gat­ing the sci­ence of hap­pi­ness. PBS is doc­u­ment­ing the find­ings, and they involve California.

Help me remem­ber that I don’t need to sit per­fect lotus, fart­ing Brag­gs amino acids at an Ojai moun­tain retreat, to know the near­ness of you. I pray on subways.

Help me remem­ber Topan­ga Canyon is no holi­er than Jay Street; that Yoga Jour­nal and Us Week­ly are both magazines.

Some­how, my peo­ple found you in ghet­tos, eat­ing miltz and schmaltz. Lat­er you blessed them with cole slaw and corned beef.

This sum­mer I ate meat on the sly for a week. Bless me too.

Yours tru­ly,

Melis­sa

Melis­sa Broder is the author of When You Say One Thing but Mean Your Moth­er. She is the cura­tor of the Polestar Poet­ry Series and the Chief Edi­tor of La Petite Zine. She is the win­ner of the Jerome Low­ell Dejur Award and the Stark Prize for Poet­ry. Broder received her BA from Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty and is cur­rent­ly in the MFA pro­gram at the CCNY. By day, she works as a lit­er­ary pub­li­cist. Her poems have appeared in many jour­nals, includ­ing: Opi­um, Sham­poo, Con­te and The Del Sol Review. She lives in Brook­lyn. Vis­it her web­site http://​www​.melissabroder​.com/