Embroideries, and: Zaftik, and: We Wait

Embroideries

My grandma's hands were gnarledto pine wood full of knots,age-spotted like a frog's backyet her palms touched my facesoft as down pillows.

Those knobbly fingers could prickout embroideries her cataractwhitened eyes could no longersee. Iz dos royt? she'd ask meIz dos bloy? Her fingers crouched

waiting my input. She clothedmy dolls with scraps of torndresses, bleached out tablecloths.Socks without mates. Mayn hantveyst. Her hands knew what

her eyes had once told them.The world turned grey, she said,then darkness pushed in.With the radio on to Helen Trentor Our Gal Sunday, she tsk-tsked

commenting in Yiddish ontheir follies, their bad husbands,their money troubles. My handsare wiser than my brain, she saidmy hands are all that's left.

Zaftik

A sheyne meydele—and theydidn't mean shaped like a pencil,a girl trying to be invisiblemore secure the less thereis of her.

Eat, eat, they said, so longas there is something to eat.I remember weeks of oatmeal,white and red beans, potatoesdug from the yard.

Four days on a stew. The lastday nothing but broththickened with flour. Wemade soup with any bonesleft over.

Young women look at me:they see flesh, the evilof ample flesh, indulgence,sin personified. I cupmy breasts in my hands,

I stroke the risen doughof my belly and I smile.I smile in the comfortof enough, now morethan enough.

We Wait

I promised to take a refugeecat set up over the Internetwith a rescuer I have never met:somewhere Cat-trina, which willnot be her name, is waitingcaged, frightened, scrawnyto meet her fate, which isus. I do not know her age,

her size, her color, hervoice. She will be partof my life. My cats will loveor detest her. They will racethrough the house chasingand counting coup. I amperturbed and eager, anxiousand wary. How incredibly

brave are those womenwho walk into marriageblindfolded, giving body,mind, fate to a faceless mantheir parents or a shadshenchose to bind them to.We await the little victimdelivered to us like mail.