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?
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?
