(For Estelle)
Grandmother was crazy
She would chase my friends with a butcher knife:
You are not going to
Make him bad she would say,
Not my child.
We lived in the Bronx,
Superintendents of an apartment complex,
Custodial engineers
Father liked to say.
She had her own room where
She found the best way
To do nothing
It made her feel safe.
Her name was Estelle,
A Jew from Russia where her family
Was treated like scum.
When she was not talking
About the old country
She would talk about the niggers,
They were no good
Except for Sammy Davis Jr.,
Her favorite Jew
It was forbidden not to respect her
Even when she came up real close
With her hairy face and toothless gums
For a kiss making me
Die more than once.
The day she died
Willie the Albino, Joel Weiss,
Kevin O’Neill and I
Were all playing curveball
It was my turn up when they came
Angry as fire
Everybody knew.
They pulled me into the basement
My friends watched confused
My heart jumped.
I almost wet my pants.
She wants you they said
While Aunt Mae cried
Father smoked Chesterfield after Chesterfield
Mother looked like a headstone:
Cover up the T.V.
Get the Rabbi
Do you know the Kaddish?
I watched my grandmother undress for death.
She smelled
Of shit and piss,
Candles lit all around,
I could not move.
My chest hurt.
My blood shrunk
As she reached out for me,
Her skin yellow
Hard like a lizard’s.
Her voice twisted up my spine
As her lungs wrestled
With the air
Go away, I cried,
Please don’t touch me, go away.
I thought to myself
She is dying
What have I done?
Her eyes slowly sinking,
Her face dry
As the cold bed sheets
I watched her hand drop.
Child, she said,
Right into my eyes,
My mouth.
–Bari L. Kennedy