Harriet Shenkman
Thanksgiving Revisited
Not one of us was seated at the
table on time, sons dueling over the turkey leg, daughter insisting both wings hers, grandpa declaring, “The best you can get in America,” all lingering over the apple pies. We went from frozen bird to fresh, canned cranberry to orange chutney. The young off to find lux et veritas, babies blessed, American Girl dolls at the table, the best giblet gravy yet. Our dinner this year wedged between their friend’s Dim Sum, the au pair’s city tour, and their party in town. They and the girls arriving just in time, toting four quarts of sweet and sour soup. Rio Uncle
Sugar Loaf rose above the sea, San Cristo
stretching his arms to bless the city at dusk. My uncle escaped to Rio, hid out in Copacabana, disguised as a poet, wanted for killing a raiding Cossack with a rock. He wore a white suit, spectator shoes, a handkerchief in his breast pocket. Married a woman who threw a plate of feijoada across the table at him. Came to Brooklyn, left pee on our toilet seat, brought me a doll with blinking eyelids. I looked into her trusting eyes, watched her lashes close over lacquered cheeks, lulled her to sleep as a mother would. Uncle died an undecorated hero, an unread poet, unloved by a woman, his only triumphs, the dead Cossack and my doll with blinking eyelids. Hunger
In the old country, he nibbled the edges
off bread his mama baked to sell while his papa spent his days bent over ancient texts. On these shores, father railed at God, scoffed at Talmudic arguments, held a lifelong grudge against hunger. He sat at the kitchen table, reverent over a bowl of berries, a bit of soused herring, a ripe cantaloupe. Later, his brain addled, he thought himself escaping through the woods, and in the morning, we found bread crusts under his pillow. Father-Bird Effort
Her lover offers
her a cherry, plump, pale yellow, cherubic, a swath of red, sweet, but not too, shape perfect for the hollow of mouth, stem right for dangling. He sets it before her with his song of horns weeping, imagines her hunger gnawing. Father-bird effort of his heart, how can she refuse? |
Riff on Coupling
You teach the angular melodies of Monk,
Coltrane’s Favorite Things. I sight a gull balancing on one leg. You explain treasure trove. I read The Waste Land as you doze. You savor sausage biscuits, me the crunch of morning-after granola. I value decision, you the merits of dwelling on a point. I thrive in bouts of silence, you a chirping jungle bird. You favor the viscosity of egg drop, me, the surprise of sweet and sour. I dream of floating on the Dead Sea, you of riding hard on the Pacific swells. I stomp to the Flamenco. You attend closely to the strumming. You snub my Darjeeling, flaunt your mug of Java. Well, You Needn’t, as Monk would say, banging chords on his piano. [A version previously published on WhenWomenWaken, Spring 2013] Heavy Praying
I will chant Dayenu in Temple, perform
a sun dance at the Arapaho hoeihoowu, travel in the sacred path of Thervada, who is the master of immeasurables, place a vodka bottle and a plaid scarf on the Ovoo near Ulaan Baatar, swear devotion to Zeus, beg Athena for the head of Medusa, give all my possessions away at next year’s spring Potlatch, light devotional candles before Our Lady of Perpetual Help, as long as you do not get lost in the warrens of your brain, as long as you remain you. Unrequited Love
She sang her siren-song
bent over the Singer, knee at the metal lever. She tried to hug me with mother-daughter outfits, flowered midriffs and matching skirts, princess-waist jumper, velvet bow beneath the bust, peach dress with raised white polka dots, Chinese-red sheath, slits down each side. I spurned her advances for clothes off-the-rack like the other girls had. [Previously published on BoomerCafe.com] |