32/60: gawumpki

In house Polish, stuffed cabbage was gawumpki.

Fat sacks bursting with hamburger and rice.

Everything smelled like cabbage 
and fried meat.

It took me decades to understand
fried meat smelled like wealth
to noses that had smelled hunger.

Old factories boarded up,
time was passing by.

A place that was opportunity, once.

The smell of cabbage lingers,
long after the meal is consumed.

All the children are gone,
no one knows the recipe anymore.