Lulu

Last night my grandmother appeared.
I talk to her rarely.
I talk at her.
Usually I've just shown her my tricks,
my knitting,
my singing,
my children.

But last night she sat facing me on the sofa,
her hair a beautiful gray,
glasses with wide black frames that suited her.
She looked right at me. Right at me.
I asked her, "Do you miss the lake?"
Yes, she said. That's what she misses the most.
"Me, too," I said, "I miss that the most." And I cried.
I didn't miss her lake,
but I know now what it meant for her
to be in Maine
away, on her own,

I missed my lake.
I told her I look forward to it and didn't say extremely,
but I felt it.
Like a dancer would show with her arms
and her face.
Urgently.
Intensely.
Longingly.

I was about to say how her lake was so different,
that she was more social than I,
that she seemed to need

people around her,
that she'd call and ask when we were coming.
But the opportunity escaped,
and suddenly my husband's nephew
made his way onto the sofa
in the middle
and smiled
waiting for me to take his picture.
Then my mother was there and my aunt,
all on the sofa.
And I couldn't find her.

Away

The copper and black ribbons

and wisps of hair, unruly

and mingled,

the girls’ fingers intertwined,

nails of shared color,

pink

and chipped,

the sweet softness of their hands

even I

feel

by just looking.

I held. I stroked.

In quiet moments sitting as they now do

sharing whispered moments of memory

and notes of song

near dappled, lapping silver blue glitter of the lake.

Days from then

leave.

Those I held, felt, helped

leave

away

from me.

shoveling snow

As the snow slowed
and the sky moved toward night,

I’d go out with my brother

to help him shovel the pathway from our house,

to help him clear the driveway and the sidewalk.

He used a snow shovel,

I used the brass shovel from the fireplace set,

the one meant for ashes,

Not for snow.

He’d clear a path wide

like my father asked,

not just the width of a shovel

like he wanted to make,

And I would try to help

with the brass shovel

that swiveled,

dropping each scoopful of snow

out of the shovel

back onto the sidewalk.

I’d quit

before crying,

and I’d smooth the snow with my wet mittens

and make a sofa

out of the snowbank

where I could sit

and watch him.

The snow would glitter in the the streetlight,

and we would yell

and wave our arms at the oncoming plow

as it shoved the snow

back into our driveway.

Bowling for gym

Strangely, I work there now,

In the same building

where we had bowling

for gym

downstairs.

Now I park my car

in the lot where the van had left us,

walk past the door that led to the lanes

I don’t clearly remember,

and I go upstairs to an office

in the building

where I was in 4th grade.

Sometimes the door leading down

is open,

and the steps to where I think I bowled

are dangerous

and the walls crumbly

and water dripping,

and a workman’s lamp

hooked onto a wire

lights a damp way down.

What could I remember

about bowling underground

when I was 9?

I, who had a tortoise named Tootie

that only I remember,

I, with a distinct, unshared memory

of the neighbor

chasing me down my street with a rifle

after I’d crept onto his lawn

with other kids,

I, with a great grandmother I remember sleeping

in the top bunk

at a nursing home

as if 90 year old women in nursing homes

had bunk beds?

Who could I ask if we’d truly bowled

in a basement alley
where I was a little girl

and now am 51?

Cortege

We followed others,

taking highways through towns where she never lived,

in a town I won’t go back to.

I won’t know how.

I’d been there before in dreams,

near our summer cottage.

If you took the Indian trail,

You’d come upon this place

of tall monuments

against a hillside

with ancient writing.

I went many times. I never felt frightened.

In life, the path frightened me.

I never knew it existed

until the day we drove in

through the gates

in our rental car

and the road curved

and we drove slowly

and it was all green

and there was the hillside

with white monuments.  

I’d been there.

She knew no one there.

She was buried next to no one she knows.

She’s buried in a town she didn't know

but might have driven through

or maybe stopped in

for manicures or rugelach,

And now I won’t find her again.

I won’t visit her there

until I am back on the Indian trail.

David

We left our car in unplowed snow

and made our way on foot

up the drive

with others,

past my father,

my grandparents,

to a friends’ grave site

newly dug

in the frozen ground.

His wife and parents sat quietly,

staring

as if at a movie,

in folding chairs,

unstirred,

despite the cold.

Snow rested on branches above,

small withered crab apples dangled from the trees.

Crows commented as they flew over,

and the worker prepared

for tomorrow’s burial

with loud tools nearby.

I watched those who stood,

the ones who had never seen

the shoveling of dirt

on one who had just died.

I watched the sons stand next to one another

in suits newly purchased.

I stared over at my father

under the snow,

remembering the fall day we gathered.

I looked at my grandparents,

headstones leaning toward one another

as if whispering a secret,

forever next to people they’d known

but never liked.

Clouds of smoky air escaped our mouths.

The cold from beneath froze our feet.

They shoveled the dirt.

She watched.

We watched her.

We watched her sons.

We all watched them,

we all honored them.

Kaddish.

Two days in a life

a person is lit,

untouchable and awesome.

One a wedding day.
The other, here.

We lined both sides of the path

for them to pass through,

then we retraced our steps

back to our cars.

Verdi's Rigoletto/Chinese Chicken Salad

I know why someone would keep recipes,

why someone would cut them out of a magazine

and adhere them to index cards,

But I didn't know why my mother’s recipes were glued

to the back of cards already used,

already written on in my father’s handwriting

as he catalogued

the record albums he owned.

Hot mulled wine on one side,

Weill, “Lost in the Stars”

Decca 8028

Todd Duncan

on the other.

Chickpea Dip on one side,

Gounod - “Faust” arias

Music appreciation 20203

on the other.

While my mother is here to tell me

how she used the backs of the cards

because reusing was what you did

because you couldn't simply go buy more

just because you wanted to,

My father is not here to tell me

what it meant

to catalog record albums.

How did he decide on this activity?

How did he choose to buy index cards

and write down every album

and alphabetize them by title

and keep them in a box?

And how did that box one day become my mother’s?

How was it decided

to turn Donizetti -  “Lucia de Lammermoor” arias

Royale 1211

Into Pineapple-Yogurt pudding?