If you borrowed eggs from my Babci she’d ask eggs for eating or eggs for cooking?
She picked wild sorrel that grew next to a rusted diesel pump on the neighbor’s farm.
Long strands spritzed by hoses power rinsing pesticide residue
Off double boom spray racks lugged by massive tractors with chunky toothed tires.
She made soup from them that tasted like soft green butter.
It wouldn’t kill you.
Unlike an air conditioner, devil’s machine.
The devil himself could be kept at bay with 32 glowing Jesus faces
Painted on the frosted sides of votive glass.
32-week-old eggs are actually the secret to the best Christmas anise cookies.
She would say a prayer for you, a mass in your name if it was bad.
A child moving farther than a car ride away. Divorce. Cancer.
Or death not coming. I don’t see why the good lord won’t take me
She said for 5 years before he finally saw fit
And we stood in the cemetery while an icy sideways rain spit sharply
On our cheeks and a blustery wind pummeled our hunched shoulders
Until Mrs. Markowski yelled out right over the priest Sophie
For the love of god cut it out because we all believe in Vaseline
Mixed with a little water to moisturize, and a shot of whisky with breakfast
On the really cold days and ghosts
Who can alter weather or fate.
And I’m not sure exactly how or precisely when
But now here I am with my one pair of polished dress shoes.
Each shoe wrapped separately in cheesecloth and tucked in a box
On the top shelf of my closet.
Teabags to be reused later sitting damply on their cracked saucers.
A stack of washed and dried Styrofoam containers in the cupboard.
Feeding the stray cats trout mush with cream, whispering to them in coo coo voices.
Judging anyone who hasn’t realized that ecstasy comes finally
From an always-to-be-determined quotient of pain.
Manual labor and don’t complain pain.
Dog bite and squeeze some Neosporin in there and sew it yourself pain.
Thrashing guts and dash to the toilet every morning and don’t tell anyone pain.
Don’t tell pain.
Your hair is your crowning glory Dianka she’d say
Heartened by the sight of it she’d hold gentle fistfuls up to the sun.
I’ve never cut it.
At night I loosen it from its twists and let it hang out the bedroom window.
When the good lord stops forgetting about me he can climb right up.
I’ll be wearing my polished dress shoes and nothing else.
I’ll tell him I’ve been waiting. I’ll tell him take me
Click here to read Diana K. Malek on the origin of the poem.
Image by Jorge Lopez on Unsplash, licensed under CC 2.0.
- Eros in Connecticut - June 29, 2024