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Kaddish
The service is held by the side of the road
under a sky I can see Grandpa's beard in,
Dad's too. I'm in floral greens and creams out of season
My skirt's too tight. Hers is too, in new places.
Cigarettes hang from our lips like surly expressions.
She has her purse in one hand, a leash in the other.
I didn't know they let dogs into cemeteries.
She looks good for Grandpa in bruised-fruit brown,
spaghetti straps, and tears, leaning on her somber mother.
The leaves, old-apple-orange, match her lips.
Grandpa wouldn't approve, but he never did.
Not since we played at Indian Princesses in peril,
With names like Fawn-by-the-Water, captured
by Pale Face in her backyard jungle gym.
Or when we were department store manikins
surrounded by Teen-Beat, white frill, and make-up
with white-sugar cigarettes to make us look older.
My room was darker and turned our games into discussions
when we were twelve and she menstruated before I did.
She'd tell stories about vomiting and doctors
or knives, arteries, and promises which I didn't believe.
Bulimia and suicide were fashionable and truth
was often abused in the adolescent late-night.
I stopped listening at thirteen.
She sat me at her table for her Bat Mitzvah,
the token misfit cousin amongst her "average teen" friends,
my bag-lady hand-me-down dress making her glitter brighter.
Since then its been years of passive aggressive humiliation
she doesn't even have to plan or think about.
First a prestigious norther college town, then
leaving home to start a Texan music commune,
and now flannel, pigtails, Barnes and Noble, and a crop-eared
Shepherd. She's third world thin just after the Red Cross
beside Grandpa's twelve pallbearers and new navy-flag blanket.
Her latest fiancee and ring compensate for her four month bulge
while her brother, just back from Japan, leaps out
to catch Grandpa before he hits the curb
and now not even her soap opera sobbing can steal our attention.
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All work on this site (writing and illustrations) are copyright 2003, Iz Church |
