Olive Oil
(for my Sephardic
grandmother)
I
remember eyes like sapphires,
dark
moles in the folds of her neck,
her
bosom, skillfully imprisoned in linen.
Olive
oil must be deep green and pungent
to
evoke other memories,
sautéed
fava beans, roasted chicken,
rice
blushing with tomato and raisins plump with steam.
Cream
puffs for dessert,
flour
caught in her diamond ring.
We
were fed advice:
Never
buy a used book; people are dirty.
Those crab apples are sour;
your mouth will pucker up and stay
that way, forever.
No one will want you.
We don’t take the bus; we’ll never
have to, God willing,
we take cabs.
Kosher meat is always best; don’t
try to fool me with that traife
from Albertson’s.
In
her birthplace, Massua, Eritrea,
where
she could hear lions cry outside the compound walls,
she
attended the only school for girls; nuns taught women’s work.
On
Shabbos, her father, a colonel in the
Italian army,
brought
in hungry Jews to feed.
Her
mother emptied the larder, silently served them.
Before
Grandmother’s blood broke,
the
betrothal was sealed by mail;
the
family with its too many girls lacked dowry
and
who but a cousin would have her?
Wrapped
like a gift against the ocean’s cold,
she
was shipped to Shanghai,
hand-written
recipes in her trunk.
Among
the rickshaws on the dock,
a
stranger, my grandfather, elegant and contained, in a downpour.
**
After twenty years and two boys,
before
Mao marched and the Last Emperor fell,
Grandfather
got the family and its fortune out,
settled
into the house on Tiger Tail Road in Brentwood,
comfortable
among the wealthy and the famous.
She
ruled her house with a wave of her hand
and
commands in Ladino. She knitted and
sewed,
taught
the proper way to behave.
Don’t
be familiar with the maid;
she’s robbing us blind.
It’s not ladylike to run.
Don’t wear that frou-frou blouse;
dress well and you, too, will marry
a Del Bourgo.
Keep the line pure.
In
her curio cabinet, animals of yellowed ivory, amber and jade:
a
small herd of horses, three monkeys, a Pekinese.
Dressed
up in dotted swiss,
I
was allowed to play with them, but carefully,
behind
the striped silk couch with dragon’s feet.
When
I go, all these will be yours.
But,
after Grandfather died,
the
antiques buyer with the moustache arrived.
Month
by month, the creatures were sold
as
I secretly wept in one room, Grandmother in another.
I
wear her earrings of platinum and pearls,
make
filling for bourekas the old way:
stir
spinach and onions, ground meat and garlic in sizzling olive oil.
A
knob of hard candy between my teeth,
I
sip bitter tea from her gold rimmed cup,
close
my eyes, lean against the kitchen counter,
listen
for the sound
of
the lions’ cry.
Near Ghent, Belgium
It
is chilly and she does not sleep.
Lies
beneath a cloud-like duvet
listening
to the pulse of her own blood in this too-big house,
too-empty. Three stories, ten bedrooms,
only
this one furnished
and
what is she doing there.
Then,
music. Pale-blue, silvery.
One
of those Chopin pieces she wishes
she
could identify.
She
swims down the staircase,
through
the anticipation of the entry hall
with
one casement thrust open,
the
reverie of the dining room where shadows
of
the old man’s paintings
still
darken the papered walls.
In
the grand parlour, at the grand piano,
the
mad boy.
The
family says he’s a neighbour
who
wanders the property at will
with
his moon face and thick shoulders,
sometimes
pretending
to
do odd jobs.
He
had entered through the window
though
the doors are left unlocked.
His
hands flutter over the keyboard,
his
eyes squeezed shut against our world,
wide
open onto another.
Marina
In
a town south of Amsterdam,
Marina
first requires a handshake.
Then,
the man must pay,
sometimes
with the gift of a parakeet,
mostly
with a crackle of bills, a jingle of coins.
The
handshake she dusts off
as
though she were baking
and
flour had traced the lines of her palm.
She
collects the money in a glass jar
specially
blown by the man in clogs,
his
hands calloused to brown leather,
face
burnished by furnace fire.
Flanked
by large bird cages,
she
stands looking out her window --
skaters
on the frozen canal,
though
the light is now dim.
On
her days off,
when
there are no men who lie down,
then
rise like dough,
she
thumbs through travel brochures.
On
the floor,
a
world atlas,
the
consolation of maps.
A
knock at the door.
The
man in clogs doffs his cap,
offers
warm pumpernickel
wrapped
in white paper.
She
gets out the butter,
heats
milk for cocoa as
he
tells of being injured,
shows
her the burn,
a
raspberry on the ladder of his chest.
They
both reach for the bread.
He
trims off the heel, passes a thick slice.
She
closes her eyes
then
opens them again
so
she can really see him.
Black
Lizard
I
found a very small mummified lizard.
Black. Perfect toes, perfect tail.
Its
eyes closed as if briefly asleep.
I
lifted it carefully. Carried it home,
placed
it on a scrap of white velvet
in
a plastic case.
Put
the case on my dresser top.
My
lover said, That is most unusual.
I
said, I’ll call him Lizlo.
Events
unfurled this way:
The
lover was too young,
his
knuckles unbloodied,
teeth
white as the idea of youth itself,
and
I sent him away to find.
He
left behind only a shirt
printed
with flowers, with sailboats.
I’ve been to sea, I told Lizlo,
when the waves folded like the pages
of a book.
At night in the harbour, the moon
bled milk.
I drank quickly so it wouldn’t sour.
At night in the harbour, the moon
seeped a cloud of mist. I inhaled
and filled my lungs with silver
light.
In early morning,
I swam in circles with the fishes,
melancholy and noble.
Everything was splash.
Everything was chrysanthemum,
delphinium.
Let
me summarize matters for you so far:
I
sent a young lover away to find;
I
spent some days talking to a lizard,
perfect
but dead.
This is what I explained to Lizlo:
I was grateful not to be a shark,
an eel, a jelly, a desolate narwhal.
I swam until I became blue,
and when I returned to the boat,
I no longer cast a shadow.
The
Road
Just
for a moment
I
lost
myself.
When
I woke, the Jeep and I were
upside down.
I
released the seat belt, crawled out
the window.
We
were in a meadow.
It
might have been
spring.
The
field was dappled
with
colour.
Purple and yellow
lupine,
buttercups,
white iris with their ruffled
dragon faces.
Nearby,
a herd of deer.
Several
does, fawns and a buck
who
lowered his head and pawed the ground.
The others were behind him,
eating flowers and
grass.
The blossoms
decorated
their mouths.
The
buck drew closer, snorting.
I told him I was
hurt
and he became quiet.
My
legs ached and my arms.
Blood
on my head.
I
could feel it warm and red on
my
fingers.
Blood
on my pale blue blouse.
The sound of
hooves, swishing
through grass and
the slight
slithering
of a pale green
snake.
A
country road at dusk.
Grass
and flowers and deer and one skinny
little
snake,
an upside down yellow box of a car,
a woman, listening
as a siren
drilled the sky.
The
deer moved,
away from
the road.
I
waited on my back
and watched the sun
slide down behind a hill.
“Olive
Oil” previously published in Mudfish
“Black
Lizard” previously published in Hunger Mountain
“The
Road” previously published in The Jewish Women’s Literary Annual
Rafi is my neighbor and I really love her poems, they carry me along like a story that I can't stop reading, they are little jewels and so accessible, so real
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