Back to Issue Sixteen

"Delectables" by Barbara Krasner

Delectables

I bask in the sunshine of my mother,

although she hated sunlight, her eyes

so sensitive she always kept the shades down.

I luxuriate in the aroma of her chicken soup,

boiling on the stove where her Brillo

erased all settings and instructions.

I wallow in the char, because she let

the lamb chops burn again while talking

to Beverly across the street.

I delight in the frying of chicken fat and onions,

gribenes, for chopped liver, a combination of

chicken and beef with hard-boiled yolk crumbles.

I revel in her tales of life in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn,

playing stickball with the boys, her many boyfriends

who marveled at her gams. Her stories about

her grandmother, Esther Toby, who took her

to the beach to wash away their sins and who

sold pretzels at Coney Island without a license.

I savor her use of “Listen, baby,” because I’d always

be her baby and the guttural sounds of her Yiddish

when she talked to her sister on the phone.

I relish watching her Charleston

in front of her full-length mirror, reclaiming

bits of her youth before arthritis.

I indulge in the memory of her tears

at her parents’ graves at Montefiore

and at seeing my eight-month-old

with an IV in his foot in Pediatrics. In

the memory of putting an ankle sock

filled with kosher salt to cure earache.

In the memory of her dressing in satin gowns

on Saturday nights in the Catskills. A class act

who made my father tear up with pride.