Susan Kress: “Thanksgiving”
THANKSGIVING
Motherless before the cord
was even cut, he fled his home
on foot at nine with a sister
not much older. We always thought
pogroms had driven them
from Volochisk but he would not say—
this small quiet man, whose son I married.
I once surprised him in my kitchen
at Thanksgiving when the house was sleeping.
He’d peeled and cut
across the grain a king-sized
yellow onion, sprinkling
salt to draw the juice.
Not the turkey, not the stuffing,
not the chestnuts I had roasted for him,
but this was the fruit that summoned from the past
his thankfulness when hunger was a habit.
His legacy was just one drawer of things:
a wallet, watch, his door key,
and a small black book, inscribed
with secret recipes
for syrups he had peddled store
to candy store before
the soda giants forced him
out of work. Best country
in the world, this is, he’d say,
then sing his prayer to shoo away
the evil eye, rocking on ruined feet.
Susan Kress has had poems appear in Southern Review, Nimrod, Third Wednesday, New Ohio Review, Salmagundi, New Letters, La Presa, and other journals.