Oh the egg (an elegy for Zipporah)




O the egg --

endless image of the hard-boiled egg,

all it was meant to stand for:

like the cyclic 

forever-wedding rings,

rebirth and springtime --

kindly expounded by the woman, the rabbi

standing in for my husband's mother

in the dining room where I missed her most

just off the kitchen cramped with strangers' gifts

at the shivah, her place vacant.

-----

But still for me

zipping around -- like the small bird she was --

with her father's ghostly shrouds over each mirror:

they polished shimmering boxes with their "buts"

keeping conversation going, like life actually 

had to go on. Dutifully peeling, chewing mechanically:

only to find the yolk turned to sand, 

the white to dust, 

the taste to ash.

Salt, so welcome.

-----

All gathered as for the best holidays

the blessings over wine and bread 

over her damask I ironed

happy for something to do

whisking it away when stained

like a magician, not disturbing the meal.

As always, only women moving:

prayer in motion, shaking. 

-----

When I must at last be seated:

looking over at her grandson --

not yet wifed, much less fathered --

skipping entirely over her son

who in his leaving would have none such

comfort offered scant years later

missing his turn at the elder business

before the first child, born.

-----

And now the harvest moon troubles, again.

Swings wide, and low, along the edge

flapping its wings, pedaling furiously

almost too heavy to lift off;

reflected: the egg, the eternal

or the pearl in the ring she left me.

They're all tattooed. So 

grief comes 'round again:

an old friend who dasn't even knock

who knows the door's ajar;

there's a place at the table

when coming in from the cold.

I was just a baby then.

-----

Racked on my own pinions --

the above, haha (not): feathers. 

Ala the bird she was, and also to be 

pinned down, the state of wivery, I remember

how a crow's laugh emitted

when I told her, thinking kindness:

we'll take care of him, don't worry --

I knew he'd be lost without her --

trivial as that seemed

to be, not her primary focus

as she was fledged.

-----

She told me

oh

so

many things --

how she (her small body) 

was nourished 

while she suckled 

her son, my husband

on the backsteps, washed pale with weather

the Depression, in our version of tenements

demoted from nurse, to nursemaid:

content for 2 beers to fill her

for both the babe an' bairn

whose mother had rented her.

How appropriate, the name: Flo.

Amber. Like the drink.

-----

How small she was --

-----

Usually blonde in later life

barely up to my chin on tiptoe, in heels

brazen ly carrying off the centrepieces --

least any pineapple, at the reception.

We were co-conspirators, happy for gum-blisters

to decorate her life:

vivid and sarcastic, sheathing in wallpaper

what was tough and generous

a fab ul ous dancer, a little flirty

with a taste for glitter, feathers

and more wigs than Imelda's shoes.

-----

-- and how great.

-----

I could not help but

only buried her:

in embellished dancewear 

fashionably torn

black knit gold, bewigged, bejazzeled

in a sharp shoebox, in my mind.

She flies on each unfettered wind.

Why should I be so sad in joy

her unlettered dance gave me?