1. Lens seizes
the slight lean toward
cousin Jude
on the landing
of the museum
white and black
backlit, bursting to color
as leaves to confetti
snipped jeweled tones
fly softly by
scarves, arms full of the same water,
veins open to family lore,
like blood on the railing
or the doorpost
or behind the painting.
Spring comes
like Jimmy Cagney
descending the stairs
shoes
clicking
crooning
death dates
and at the bottom
an orange tear
fallen from a ripe fruit propped against the stair
My great grandmother and Jude’s grandmother were the same person! Esther.
- Esther
Before braces
closed the gap in my
two front teeth,
Grandma Charlotte
put my reluctant hand in hers
and walked me thru a flock
of wheelchairs
to Esther, her mother.
My great grandmother leans in,
studying me
behind her smudged glasses.
Swallowing my hello, I smile,
will she understand my smile?
She only speaks Yiddish.
Esther yips…lets out a whistle
and points vigorously to the gap
in my front teeth, smiles and says
“Morty.” Not a word of English,
just my father’s name in her mouth.
————-
- At Grandma Chal’s house, diced fruit dissolves to sugar on my tongue. Burgundy grapes, ripe pears, fall onto her knife and emerge confetti. I imagine these grapes and pears were picked in Gan Eden and arrived to Hope Street in Providence each season when I visit my grandparents. Mr. Sweet was the man in charge of the other-worldly storefront. I had overheard my grandmother call him Ganav Sweet. I thought that was his first name. So, one day I asked her, “when can we go see Ganav Sweet”? She reddened, “sha” she said quietly “you can’t call him that” I learned later that Ganav means thief and that he had put all four of his kids through graduate school with that sumptuous fruit.
————
- Now my dad sleeps and sleeps and has no appetite for cookies. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know my sister Loren, who visits him every week. But somehow, he knows we belong to him. My sister zoomed from his room the other day. I never tire of seeing that gap between his two front teeth when he laughs. I remembered mine, before braces. And the moment he saw me on camera, he let out a whistle, turning to Loren he said, ’she looks like me’…
- Keren
I am the last leaf on the tree
The usually stern Israeli religious school teacher perked up and smiled when I led his class in song. “You, you are great. You are like a keren…a beam of light.”
I told him my name was Karen and he replied, “perfect.”
Later my name means sun beam
Like the glow
on the face of Moses
as he danced
down Mt Sinai
to the horn blowing
fruit in the horn overflowing
and notes falling to confetti
