AN OLD WOMAN THROWING KNIVES

My mother's stepmother's mother

Ruled the kitchen. When arthritis
Forbade her using can openers
She’d hurl meat cleavers across the room
At cans of condensed milk set on a table.
Her loaves of bread were painted

With egg yolk. She used a long feather

So old her own mother might have known

The aboriginal goose from which it came.
 ("She'd heard of germs," my mother said,
"But did not believe in them.")
When my small mother needed love here
Was where she found it.

UNION SQUARE, 1969 OR SO

Three gods sharing a meal in a dim cafe
Where the waiters have been dead for years
But still work, because the tips are good.
It's grown late but the gods have just
Opened another bottle. One gestures
For the headwaiter to join them.
He takes off his apron, puts on slippers
Sends the busboy for the jeweled crown
Hanging on a nail in the kitchen.

A CUP OF TEA

While everyone else in that large family slept
My father would be awake in the attic
Studying perhaps, or writing imperishable things
Which have perished. After her hard day's work,
His mother would read old newspapers
In the kitchen. (She got full value from her papers
Never letting one go until she had read it all
The news, the ads, the serialized novel,
Advice, recipes and those strange short bits
Compositors used to make the columns even.)
A few hours before dawn she would go upstairs
And bring him some tea and perhaps a cookie.
Did she bring a cup for herself sometimes?
And what did they discuss, those nachtvolk?

DREAMS IN THE KITCHEN, DRINKING TEA

My father’s dreams grow tired of waiting for him

They sit, complaining, over endless cups of tea

“Three years dead now, and another three months almost;

What ails the man? Does he mean to stay dead?”

I knew most of them when they were younger, milder .

They waited on him patiently. He’d a day job then

And a night job. And, of course, a weekend job.

If he hadn’t sneaked extra hours into the day

He’d have had no time for his children;

He always had time for them. “Don’t get sentimental!”

Warn his dreams. “Our frail brothers went with him

But we remain. Find work for us! Or make more tea.”