Marrowbones

artwork: ralph murre

Marrowbones

by Florence Weinberger

The fat women in the Coney Island steam bath

pinched my cheek and laughed at nothing,

sweat gleaming off their skin and coarse, curly hair,

not a bone to be seen anywhere,

not in my aunt’s long breasts, none in the flesh

of my mother’s belly.  I grew up in the shelter

 of kitchen gossip, amplitude nourished by yeasty smells,

pillows of soft-rising dough, a feminine language

that taught me where the body begins, its armature

concealed, its health augmented like good soup. 

By sixth grade, I knew I was fat.  I married a man

with a flat stomach and an unrequited hunger.

The soup the Nazis fed him in their concentration camp

was thin as silk, what floated there thinner still.

From the aunts and mothers I learned wisdom is liquid,

rescue, a recipe they give to their daughters.

When the soup is done, I remove the bones,

scoop out the glutinous marrow, every last shred.

I spread it on fresh rye bread.

            I watch him eat, and my heart gets fat.

~ First appeared on The Pedestal

The Power in My Mother's Arms

The Power in My Mother’s Arms

by Florence Weinberger

My mother stretched dough thin,

thinner, to its splitting edge.

All that certainty gripped her

wrist, while she sieved

bread crumbs through her fingers,

nuts, sugar, apples, lemon rind,

laying down family legends

like seams in a rock; then

she rolled it all up

the sweet length of the dining room table.

Beaten egg glazed the top, and still

aroma to come, cooling and slicing.

I didn't mind her watching me

eat; I'd give back the heat of my

need gladly, fuel to keep the cycle

elemental, if you've watched birds feed

their young.

To every celebration, she matched a flavor,

giving us memory,

giving exile the bite of bitter herbs.

God's word drifted in fragrant soups,

vigor in the wine she made

herself, clear and original.

                   My mother's death

changed the alchemy of food.

                              Holidays run together now

like ungrooved rivers.  I forget

what they are for.  I buy bakery goods.

They look dead

under the blue lights.

I don't do anything the way she taught me.

I don't look like her and I don't sound

like her, but I stand like her.

There must be rituals

that sever what harms

our connection to the past and lets us

keep the rest.

If not, let me invent one

from old scents and ceremonies.

Let me fashion prayer from a

piece of dough, roll it out,

cut in the shape of my mother,

plump, soft, flour-dusted,

the way I once played cook with clay.

Let me keep the cold healing properties

of female images,

their power

to hold fire.

Let me bake her likeness in vessels

made of earth and water.

Let me bless the flames

that turn her skin gold,

her eyes dark as raisins.

Let me bless the long wait at the oven door.

Let me bless the first warm dangerous taste of love.

Let me eat.

~ first published in Women and Aging (Calyx)