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Family Portrait with Rosary and Steak Knife
Because they did not then have men,
my mother and her sister gave their girls a childhood
of artichokes with bearnaise, eggs benedict
on Sundays after Mass. And once,
a lobster dinner from the Italian grocer in the Strip.
Married young inside the Church
and divorced back out a decade later,
they were moored pewside through communion
because they would not confess themselves
adulteresses weekly. They watched
their daughters waiting single file
to take Christ’s body
on their tongues. My mother
plunged her mother’s good Case knife,
a wedding gift, into each lobster’s back
and sent it shrieking
to the pot. My sister wouldn’t eat
but saved the shell, its soft parts
scalded red. She hid the shell
beneath her bed and took it out at night
to speak to it. She wagged
its jagged sawtooth claws,
its blackened gumdrop eyes.
She made it answer back.
my mother and her sister gave their girls a childhood
of artichokes with bearnaise, eggs benedict
on Sundays after Mass. And once,
a lobster dinner from the Italian grocer in the Strip.
Married young inside the Church
and divorced back out a decade later,
they were moored pewside through communion
because they would not confess themselves
adulteresses weekly. They watched
their daughters waiting single file
to take Christ’s body
on their tongues. My mother
plunged her mother’s good Case knife,
a wedding gift, into each lobster’s back
and sent it shrieking
to the pot. My sister wouldn’t eat
but saved the shell, its soft parts
scalded red. She hid the shell
beneath her bed and took it out at night
to speak to it. She wagged
its jagged sawtooth claws,
its blackened gumdrop eyes.
She made it answer back.
Posted 07/10/14
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