Bobe's Leg
Rent from DeepDyve- Bobe's Leg
The corner coal stove can't keep up. Leave the window open! Papa says. Her soul must fly when she dies!I sit, shiver, wrapped in my nightgown and boiled wool coat.Bobe snores in my bed from the sleeping medicine. The one-eyed streetlight on Essex spies on us! Go away! Does God need a lamp when the window is open?
Father argues with mother. Three dollars for a box for your mother's leg, and I'll pay more yet!I open the stove door. Sparks shoot and die in its belly. My gloves need darning.I sing Rock of Ages and cover my ears. Is she moving her right leg? Impossible, it's gone When she dies, will her soul hover over her like a moth missing half a wing? [End Page 111]
The Rabbi quoted Maimonides, The limb cut from a living man is as unclean as the entire corpse.The doctor took her to the clinic to do it, telling father Mendel, you live in America now in the twentieth century.Still, blood spatters the sheets, and only three days before Passover!Scrub out the stains! Steel wool the floor boards! Will the Almighty shun us if she doesn't die now?
Mother dressed me up like a woman last week to bury the leg. The fabric fell like empty sacks of millet from my chest.I begged to remain in the apartment, to clean and scrub. No morsel of bread will escape my dust pan. None of coffee cake crumb will survive my search!She said it was too soon to clean for Passover.The Rabbi carried the leg in a plain pine box. The men held their hats on the Staten Island Ferry.If he drops the leg, will all the water be poisoned?
I ask for her death now. Will the soul mend the leg if the body cannot? In heaven, will stains be lifted from white linen?It is still dark out and Papa wants tea.Bobe wakes and screams out. May the kettle's whistle shout over her cries. May the black tea drown this bitter taste in my mouth.Pouring the boiling water into a flowered cup, I wonder if even this scalding would purify my hands.
Jane Seitel holds a master's degree in education and expressive therapy. Her work appears in Poetica. She lives with her family in Baltimore, Maryland.
Footnotes
Bobe, also spelled Bubbe or Bubbie in context of American Jewish writing, is the Yiddish noun for grandmother. In many immigrant Jewish families, the Bobe (Bubbe) lived with her married daughter's (or son's) family. The speaker in this poem is the granddaughter of the dying grandmother. [End Page 112]
