A Literary Magazine in Support of the Jewish Community
Jewish American Dream 7: To Boldly Go
We, too, are made of wonders...
—Ada Limon, “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa”
Guess how many Jews have been to space.
18, If you count William Shatner but not Kirk:
That seems like a lot, right? Still, not a single one
of them brought a corned beef on rye sandwich
into orbit. That was John Young, who snuck it
in his pocket onto Gemini III. Later, he told
Life Magazine, “I took a bite, but crumbs of rye bread
started floating all around the cabin.” A NASA guy
later said “crumbs are the concern,” and believe me,
I get it. You should see the counter after I slice
a dozen still-warm everythings from Bialy's.
It’s like a gluten crime scene and that’s with gravity.
It’s unclear whether the sandwich encased
in acrylic at the Grissom Memorial Museum
in Mitchell, IN is the actual sandwich or whether
it just, as the sign says, “memorializes”
the sandwich in question. I know enough
to know I’ll never get to space, but at least
I can eat a corned beef on rye whenever I want to.
Danny Caine
Danny Caine is the author of the poetry collections Continental Breakfast (Mason Jar Press, 2019), El Dorado Freddy's (a collaboration with Tara Wray, Belt Publishing, 2020), Flavortown (Harpoon Books, 2020), and Picture Window (Autofocus Books, 2023), as well as the books How to Resist Amazon and Why (Microcosm Publishing, 2021) and How to Protect Bookstores and Why (Microcosm Publishing, 2023). His poetry has appeared in The Slowdown, LitHub, DIAGRAM, HAD, and Barrelhouse. He's a co-owner of the Raven Book Store, Publishers Weekly's 2022 bookstore of the year.
