Why I Shall Never Invite You To A Passover Seder

I thought of you the other day
when the grocery store had
over a dozen jars of gefilte fish
marked down to half-price.
 
I remembered when I confided to you
how I drink the detritus liquid
after I finish off the fish:
it’s basically slightly gelatinous chicken broth
that is sweetened by the fishy Passover dumplings.
 
The next day you read a poem at an open mic
about drinking Gefilte Fish Detritus.
I felt as if my shrink was paid fifty-thousand-dollars
by the National Enquirer to reveal my dietary misgivings.
 
And though what you achieved
was a few cheap laughs
by our fellow poet friends
without mentioning my name,
I felt like you nailed me to a cross
and drizzled my private admission
in honey over my naked body
before taking a mallet to the glass wall
of a colony of Puerto Rican Fire ants.
 
Due to the triggered trauma
of your egregious betrayal,
I bought no jars of Gefilte fish
even though they had over a year till expiration. 


Bryan Franco is a gay, Jewish poet from Brunswick, Maine who competed in the 2014 National Poetry Slam in Oakland, California. He has been published in anthologies, journals, and literary magazines in the US, Australia, England, Germany, Holland, India, Ireland, and Scotland and has featured in the US, Canada, England, Ireland, and Scotland. He performed at the New York City Poetry Festival in 2022 and is hosting a stage in 2023.  He was a finalist in the 2022 and won 2023 NAMI New Jersey Mental Health Poetry Contest and is a Best Of The Net nominee. He has facilitated poetry workshops for Brunswick High School, Tumblewords Project, and Phynnecabulary. He hosts Café Generalissimo Open Mic, is a member of the Beardo Bards Of The Bardo poetry troupe, painter, sculptor, gardener, and culinary genius. His book "Everything I Think Is All in My Mind" was published in 2021.