That Said Read online

  after the rabbi, phrase by Hebrew phrase,

  she claps when the rabbi pronounces us

  husband and wife and we kiss to applause,

  her future father stomps on the goblet

  wrapped in the caterer’s cloth napkin,

  and glass shatters safely underfoot.

  She rewinds the tape back to the beginning,

  to what she calls the “really funny part,”

  back to before our murmuring guests

  sit down in the rented chairs on that

  sweltering June Sunday, 96 degrees,

  freesia wilting, family close to fainting,

  whipped cream on the cake about to turn,

  back to before we stand under the canopy,

  back to before the ceremony, back to when

  my father presses the Record button, clears

  his throat and says into the microphone:

  “Testing, testing”—a voice I last heard

  years ago, a few days before he died.

  Shocked, I hear my dead mother say,

  “George, are you sure the tape recorder’s

  working?” And my father says, “I’m sure.”

  My mother says, “George, are you sure

  the batteries aren’t dead?” And my father

  answers patiently at first, then wearily,

  “Essie, I’m sure.” She asks him again,

  and he answers again, and here they are,

  arguing in my bedroom, in the house

  my mother never set foot in.

  My daughter’s eyes shine with laughter;

  mine with tears. Although I’d give anything

  to have them back, even for a moment, I clamp

  my hands over my ears (just as I used to

  when I was growing up) and shut them out again.

  Shit Soup*

  Other mothers have their “Everything Stew,”

  “Icebox Ragout,” “Kitchen-Sink Casserole.”

  Mine had “Shit Soup,” a recipe she told me

  standing in her kitchen in New Jersey.

  “Find a big pot, the biggest pot you have.

  Shit a quartered chicken into the pot.

  If you have an old carcass lying around,

  shit it in. Add three quarts of cold water

  and salt, and bring to a boil. Skim off

  the foam as it collects on the surface.

  Slice one large or two medium onions.

  Shit them in. Shit in some dill and parsley.

  Dried is okay but fresh tastes better.

  Cut into bite-size pieces some carrots,

  a couple celery stalks. Shit them in.

  Those lousy-looking zucchini squash,

  withered wedges of cabbage, puckered peas.

  In other words, anything in the fridge.

  If you have fresh or frozen string beans,

  shit them in. Shit in a few potatoes.

  Peel the skin, dig out the eyes, cut off

  the bad parts—and shit them in anyway,

  they’re filled with vitamins and minerals.

  Friday’s leftovers, oh, what the hell.

  Shit them in, shit in twelve black peppercorns.

  Want to know my secret ingredient?

  One ripe tomato makes the broth taste sweet.

  What’s under that aluminum foil?

  Shit it in. A little mold won’t kill you.

  My recipe? I don’t measure. I just shit

  a little of this in, a little of that.

  Your Mama’s Shit Soup. Enough for a week.

  With a pot of this you’ll never go hungry.”

  Shit in “There wasn’t time for me to go

  to the ShopRite and buy steaks to broil

  for your father’s and your dinner.”

  Shit in “I’d like to sell the store someday

  and move to Florida.” Shit in the Recession,

  the Second World War, the Great Depression.

  Shit in “There’s no rest for the weary.”

  Shit in her bunions, her itchy skin.

  Shit in “Rich or poor, it’s nice to have money.”

  Shit in “Marriage isn’t made in heaven.”

  Shit in the Republicans. Shit in her tumor.

  Shit in where it spread to her liver

  “like grains of rice,” the doctor said.

  Shit in her daughters at the cemetery

  crying over the hole when they lowered

  her in. Shit in one last handful of dirt.

  Cover the pot and reduce heat to low.

  Simmer on the lowest possible flame

  for two hours, or until vegetables

  are fork tender, meat falls off the bone.

  My Mother’s Mirror

  After her funeral, I swiped it,

  swaddled it, and spirited it home.

  I’d have preferred a plain unfussy one,

  not this pewter cupid caryatid

  bracing up a shining circle

  flipping, two-faced, like a coin—

  a regular mirror on one side,

  a magnifying mirror on the other.

  It was my mother’s best friend,

  worst enemy. As a girl, I watched her

  stare into it for hours, examining

  her wrinkles, tweezing her eyebrows.

  Sometimes I’d walk in on her

  inspecting her face pore by pore,

  brow to chin. Once a week,

  she’d smear her face with a white clay

  beauty mask that hardened like porcelain,

  broken only by the glittering peepholes

  of her dark brown eyes.

  She appraised her face

  as if she were considering

  a damaged antique vase, and weighing

  the severity of its cracks.

  Her jaw sagged, her chin doubled,

  little bags puffed out

  under her eyes.

  Her right eye, then her left,

  clouded over with cataracts.

  The mirror never changed.

  The day after her funeral, my sister

  and I sat and divided up her things.

  I got the diamond engagement ring,

  the longer string of pearls.

  I was the older daughter, the firstborn.

  I felt I had the right.

  Now, at fifty,

  I stare into her mirror

  glazed with our common face,

  the face I’ll pass down to my daughter,

  who watches from behind me

  with the same puzzled look I had

  when I watched my mother,

  out of the corner of her eye,

  watching me.

  But when I swivel the mirror

  to its other side,

  the face tilting up at me slides away

  and returns twice its size,

  with swollen nose, bulging eyes, unstable

  flesh stretching like the taffy body

  in the funhouse mirror

  at Palisades Amusement Park,

  where I used to go and gaze

  at the girl I was.

  I look away. What did I think?

  That I’d stay fourteen forever?

  “By the time you’re fifty,”

  my mother used to say,

  “you get the face you deserve.”

  Happiness

  Joyce opens her antique silk-covered box

  and we shuffle twelve dozen ebony tiles

  face-down on my kitchen table.

  She calls this the “Twittering of the Sparrows.”

  She’s teaching my daughter, Emma, and me

  how to play mah-jongg, the game

  all the Jewish mothers played, except mine.

  It’s way past Emma’s bedtime,

  the harvest moon having risen hours ago

  round and full as the one-dot

  on its tile of worn ebony.

  After we’ve stacked the tile
s

  and built a square Great Wall of China,

  Joyce hands Emma a tiny box carved from bone,

  which holds two tiny ivory dice,

  small as her baby teeth I tucked away

  in an envelope in my keepsake drawer.

  This is weird. My generation of women

  wouldn’t be caught dead playing mah-jongg,

  the game all the Jewish mothers played

  summers at Applebaum’s Bungalow Colony,

  red fingernails clicking against the tiles.

  Joyce’s friend Susan taught her mah-jongg;

  and like a big sister, Joyce wanted to teach me;

  her favorite Bakelite bracelets

  clunking noisily around her wrist.

  Beginners, we are not yet ready

  to gamble with real money.

  We lay our tiles face-up on the table,

  exposing our hands, so everyone can see.

  At Applebaum’s my mother would watch

  the other mothers playing mah-jongg—

  but she wouldn’t sit down and join them.

  Even when she took the summer off,

  my mother was not about playing.

  I roll the highest score on the dice,

  so I am the East Wind, the dealer.

  But I’m sitting at the foot of the table,

  where the south, on a map, would be.

  It’s not the normal geography.

  The South Wind sits to the left of me

  clunking her bracelets,

  and Emma’s the North Wind, on my right.

  Joyce tells us a little trick to remember

  the clockwise order of play—

  “Eat Soy With Noodles,”

  (East, South, West, North)—

  and to remind us who’ll be the East Wind next.

  Oh how I love the sound of the tiles

  clicking together, the sound our nails make

  clicking against the tiles,

  the sound the ebony tiles make

  scraping the oak table, the sound the dice make

  bouncing softly on the wood,

  the sound my mouth makes calling out

  “Eight crack” and “Five bamboo” as I discard them,

  the sounds the ivory counting sticks make

  when we add up our scores,

  and the names of the hands we have scored,

  syllables of pure pleasure:

  combinations of Pungs, Chows, Kongs,

  and pillows, pairs of East Winds or Red Dragons,

  making a Dragon’s Tail, Windfall, LillyPilly,

  Seven Brothers, Three Sisters, Heavenly Twins,

  making a Green Jade, Royal Ruby, White Opal,

  Red Lantern, and Gates of Heaven...

  Why did my mother deny herself?

  Once when I asked her, she confessed

  that she never really enjoyed business.

  I think that my mother

  didn’t much like mothering, either.

  It scared her, too, the closeness of every day.

  It was easier to fold my clothes

  than to touch me. Even as she was dying,

  she shut me out, preferring to be alone.

  Now, she’s like the West Wind in the empty chair

  opposite me, the absent one we skip over

  because we are playing with only three.

  Emma shouts, “Mah-jongg!”—she’s won her first game.

  Joyce is so thrilled, she forgets

  we’re not playing for money.

  Rummaging in her purse, she pulls out

  a dollar bill and crushes it into Emma’s hand.

  We reshuffle the tiles. Twitter the sparrows—

  all peacocks, dragons, flowers, seasons

  hide under their black blankets of night.

  Reflecting us, the dark window blurs our hands

  then brightens into all the other hands I saw

  around card tables set up under shade trees

  during those long hot afternoons

  in Rockland Lake, New York.

  Babies napping, husbands away at work,

  all the other mothers playing—

  happy, sipping their iced drinks,

  happy, smoking their cigarettes.

  A Yes-or-No Answer

  I’ll forgive and I’ll forget, but I’ll remember.

  —Yiddish proverb

  For Emma

  A Yes-or-No Answer

  Have you read The Story of O?

  Will Buffalo sink under all that snow?

  Do you double-dip your Oreo?

  Please answer the question yes or no.

  The surgery—was it touch-and-go?

  Does a corpse’s hair continue to grow?

  Remember when we were simpatico?

  Answer my question: yes or no.

  Do you want another cup of joe?

  If I touch you, is it apropos?

  Are you certain that you’re hetero?

  Is your answer yes or no?

  Did you lie to me, like Pinocchio?

  Was forbidden fruit the cause of woe?

  Did you ever sleep with that so-and-so?

  Just answer the question: yes or no.

  Did you nail her under the mistletoe?

  Will you spare me the details, blow by blow?

  Did she sing sweeter than a vireo?

  I need an answer. Yes or no?

  Are we still a dog-and-pony show?

  Shall we change partners and do-si-do?

  Are you planning on the old heave-ho?

  Check an answer: Yes No

  Was something blue in my trousseau?

  Do you take this man, this woman? Oh,

  but that was very long ago.

  Did we say yes? Did we say no?

  For better or for worse? Ergo,

  shall we play it over, in slow mo?

  Do you love me? Do you know?

  Maybe yes. Maybe no.

  The Streak

  Because she wanted it so much, because

  she’d campaigned all spring and half the summer,

  because she was twelve and was old enough,

  because she would be responsible and pay for it herself,

  because it was her mantra, breakfast, lunch, and dinner,