Esther Cohen

My grandmother Anna Soroccor, a fabulist born in the town of Bacau, Roumania, had her ears pierced as a child.  I never saw her without earrings. My mother, too, had her ears pierced as a child, although it was harder to find an ear piercer in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where she was born.  She wore many large and colorful pairs.  When she died a while ago I asked her friends to choose earrings, and they all knew which ones they wanted.  

My ears were pierced when I was 11 in Ansonia, Connecticut, by an older Italian man.  Gold studs were my first pair.  Since then I have bought hundreds of earrings wherever I go.  I have a beautiful small chest that is full of too many pairs to count.  Twenty five years ago in Oaxaca, I bought a cheap pair on the street, and over the years, as often happens, I lost one.  Last spring, in Oaxaca again, I found the woman who sold me the earrings.  I bought the same pair again.

Esther Cohen’s new book All of Us, stories and poems along Route 17, is available from Bookshop. 

https://bookshop.org/p/books/all-of-us-stories-and-poems-along-route-17-esther-cohen/20335595