including me.
Some Things I Just Don’t Understand
I can understand
why Dad hollers at us
when we wreck things,
like the ceiling,
because repairs cost money.
And I understand,
because I’m not too bad at math,
that the Depression + lots of kids = never enough money.
But I don’t understand
why a man who hates children
had twelve of them.
That just doesn’t add up.
I’m Not the Performer in the Family
It’s Saturday morning,
and Mildred and I
are taking Marian, Annette, Lenny,
Melvin, Sol, and Jack
and the gefilte fish sandwiches
Mom packed for us
to spend the whole day
at the Roxy, watching the cartoons
and the serials and the double feature.
We always try to get to the theater early
so Mildred can perform
in the Kiddie Club onstage
before the movies start.
She sings and tap-dances
so she can win passes
for us to see the movies for free.
I’m glad Mildred has talent,
because if I got up there
and tried to sing,
they’d charge us even more
than the regular fifteen-cent admission.
Our Calling Card
On the way to the Roxy
we make our usual stop
to buy sunflower seeds
at the corner pet shop.
I hold hands with Melvin
till we get to a light pole
and we both let go,
yelling, “Crackers and oleo!”
Now we’re all watching the Buck Jones serial
and cracking open the seeds with our teeth,
leaving little piles of shells
all around our feet.
But when the ushers clean up
at the end of the show,
they’ll never know the shells were ours—
we’ve all moved down a row.
Now It’s Not Too Cold to Be Outside Anymore
So Mom is making us
scrub and polish
the marble steps
of our row house,
scrub and polish
until they shine.
We rub the sand-soap bars
back and forth
until our arms shake
and those steps sparkle,
all the while muttering
under our breath
about this horrible job
Mom makes us do.
But when the lady next door
offers to pay us each a dime,
we jump at the chance
and polish
hers, too.
Signs of Spring
I know that spring must be here
because, like always
when the weather changes,
there’s my big brother Daniel,
propped up in bed with pillows,
wheezing.
And no matter what
the weather’s like,
for breakfast
he has to eat his cereal
with water on it.
And worst of all,
he can’t have ice cream
or milk shakes
with the rest of us.
But he never, ever complains.
I know I would.
Especially about the ice cream.
So I try never to eat any
in front of him.
Our Cousins Are Coming to Town for Passover
They live in New York,
and they must be rich
because Theodora wears Mary Jane shoes
and party dresses all the time,
and Marvin wears long pants
instead of knickers,
and their dad takes family movies
on their very own movie camera.
While they’re in Baltimore,
they could stay with Bubby Anne,
who has plenty of room,
or Uncle Willie,
who has a bigger house than ours
and only two kids,
or Uncle Albert,
who has a guest room,
or Aunt Ruth,
who has no kids of her own
and the biggest house of all.
But they always want to stay with us.
It’s a mystery to me.
They’re the lucky ones
because it’s just the two of them,
but they think
squeezing into the beds with us,
where we’re already sleeping
three to a bed,
head to foot,
foot to head,
is the greatest thing
ever.
Getting Ready for Passover
Annette is supposed to be scrubbing
the white tile kitchen counters.
But instead she’s opening
and slamming cabinets
and rifling through drawers.
I’m busy cleaning out the icebox
with Melvin at my side,
searching for stray bread crumbs
on the kitchen floor,
when Annette comes over to me
all teary-eyed and pitiful.
“I can’t find it,” she whines.
“Can’t find what?” I snap.
“The elbow grease Mom told me to use.”
“Keep looking,” I tell her,
trying not to laugh.
A Second Chance
Mom brings home
a nice big carp to cook for Passover,
but when Daniel, Mildred, and I see it move,
we decide to save its life.
So we sneak it off the table
and put it in the bathtub,
where it swims around for a while.
But it doesn’t really matter.
It still ends up as gefilte fish
served on a silver platter.
Nobody Invites Us to Their House
We’ll have the big first-night Passover Seder
at our house,
but only Mom and Dad
are going to Bubby Anne’s house
for second-night Seder,
leaving us kids at home,
as usual.
We’re always having extra people
at our house for dinner—
Mildred’s boyfriends,
Bubby Etta and her husband,
and sometimes our cousins.
Mom doesn’t seem to mind—
she just adds more water to the soup.
“I wish somebody
would invite our whole family
to their house for dinner,” I tell Daniel.
“It’ll never happen,” he says.
“It’d be like having
the whole Baltimore Orioles team over.”
I guess nobody
wants to have soup
that watery.
A Family Emergency
Connie and Eunice and I
are playing marbles at the corner.
I’m about to roll the shimmy
when Eunice yells, “Hey, Edith,
there’s an ambulance by your house
and that looks like your mother getting in.”
I race up the street
as the ambulance drives off
with Mom in the back
holding a bundle
wrapped in a blue blanket.
I’m thinking it’s the baby.
My stomach churns
as I run up the marble steps to our house.
The door’s wide open.
The house is quiet.
But then I hear crying start upstairs.
Baby Sherry’s in her crib
and Lenny�
��s standing next to it,
his arm poking through the crib bars,
holding the baby’s hand,
and now he’s crying so hard
he can’t even catch his breath
to answer my questions.
And I’m left wondering
who was wrapped in the blue blanket.
The Worst Night Ever
Dad’s lumbering around the parlor,
hunched over like an old man,
he stops to wrap his arms around Mom,
who’s leaving a trail of tissues on the floor
from wiping her red, puffy eyes
and runny nose.
She hands us each a penny
and sends us outside.
“Go buy something
for yourselves,” she says.
So we take our pennies
and each other’s hands
and trudge to the corner candy store
that stays open until late.
We don’t know what to say to one another,
so we just stare at the sidewalk,
and nobody
buys any candy.
Nothing can take away our sadness
on this night when we learned
that we’ll never hold hands
with Melvin again.
The Day Our Family Got Too Small
Today
Mom and Dad made me come to school
even though I wanted to be
at Melvin’s funeral.
Miss Connelly asks me why I am crying.
I tell her
that the day before yesterday
my little brother Melvin with
his floppy brown ringlets
was wrapping his arms around my legs
like he always does,
that the day before yesterday
he was walking beside me
when I took the baby for a stroll,
keeping his little hands on the carriage,
trying to help me push it.
I tell her that the day before yesterday
my little brother Melvin
had bronchitis
and we didn’t know it,
but then all of a sudden
he couldn’t breathe,
so Mom took him to the hospital,
and he died there.
And I tell her
that the day before yesterday
I thought my family
was way too big,
but now
my family
is one
too
small.
Melvin’s Funeral
Sylvia got to go
because she’s the oldest.
She told me how cute he looked
in his white suit
and his yarmulke.
I wasn’t allowed to go,
because Mom and Dad
said a cemetery
is no place for children.
If that’s true,
then why are they
leaving my little brother there
forever?
It’s Passover No Matter What
The funeral was yesterday.
Tonight Passover begins.
Dad says we’ll still
have our Passover dinner
even though no one’s in the mood.
He brings home a chicken
and tells me to stuff it and cook it.
Mom’s too sad to make dinner.
I’ve watched Mom do it
a million times,
but I’ve never cooked a chicken myself.
I notice at dinner
that nobody is eating.
“It’s much too salty,”
Marian says.
“Eat it anyway,” Dad tells us.
“You’ve lost so much salt
from all the crying.”
Sometimes I Forget
Sometimes when I come home from school
I expect Melvin to race to the door
and wrap himself around me
like a snug skirt.
Sometimes when I open the door,
so much noise rushes at me
from Lenny, Sol, Jack, and baby Sherry
that I even think I hear Melvin.
Sometimes when I come in,
someone brushes by me
and I’m sure it’s Melvin’s floppy curls
I feel tickling my arm.
But then I remember,
and the house
feels too quiet,
and I can hardly breathe.
It’s Shabbos
Mom should be lighting the candles,
but she’s not.
She should be pulling in the candlelight
with her hands
just before she covers her eyes
and says the Shabbos blessing,
but she’s not.
She should be setting the lit candles
on the dining table
before she serves the meal,
but she’s not.
“I cannot thank God
for the Shabbos light
when he has left me
in such darkness,” she says.
When God Spoke to Mom
Up until Melvin died,
Mom was working at the diner
while us older kids
were staying home after school
to take care of the younger ones.
But now Mom says
that when Melvin died,
God was telling her
to stay home and be with her children.
So she’s going to stop working at the diner
and I have to start.
I wish I could be
one of those children
she’s staying home
to be with.
The Meaning of Bittersweet
Mom’s in the kitchen
dipping apples in gooey caramel.
She hands me one on a stick
even before the caramel’s had a chance to harden.
I ask her if today is a special day,
like maybe somebody’s birthday that I forgot.
“Yes, Edith,” she says, her voice cracking.
“It is a special day.
“Today we’re celebrating the sweetness
that was Melvin.”
I bite down hard on the sticky apple,
trying to enjoy its sweetness
while my eyes well up
with bitter tears.
Looking for a Way Out
Every day after school
I walk through the ballpark
on my way to work
at the diner,
and every day
I pray
that one of those balls
will hit me so hard
it’ll break some part of me
and I’ll get to stop working
and stay home after school and just play
every day.
Back to School with a Plan
Since I haven’t gotten hit
by a baseball yet,
I come up with a plan.
I lie and tell Dad
that I’ve joined lots of clubs
this semester in school—
the Coach Club and Yearbook
and Glee Club
and Farewell Assembly Committee
and Victory Corps–Office Emergency Squad.
I don’t know what any of these clubs do,
and I only heard about them
from my big sister Sylvia,
because you have to be in high school
to join them,
but Dad doesn’t have to know that.
I’ll just tell him I have to stay
so late after school every day,
meeting with all these clubs I’ve joined,
that I won’t have time
to work at the diner.
&n
bsp; When I tell Dad
about the clubs,
he scowls at me.
“Clubs, shmubs—
you’re too young to join.
You’ll work for me after school,” he says.
I guess I need a new plan.
A Crime
Now I have an answer for Miss Connelly,
who asked me
at the start of the school year
who I am in this family.
I used to think I was
“the good little mother,”
taking care of my sisters and brothers,
but I’m really
just one of Dad’s work slaves.
That’s who I am.