Blessing The Bones - Jackie Huss Hallerberg

[Larry Robinson]

Blessing The Bones                                                                            
           
I sit alone at the kitchen table,
barbecued chicken bones lie heaped
like dead soldiers on my plate.
I lick the sauce from the bones.
I feel carnal and content
and then I think of grandma.
I could be her as I enjoy
this solitary meal.
 
She is dressed in a long straight skirt,
a short-sleeved cotton blouse.
Her apron is spotted, her stockings
sag down around her ankles, her toes
poke through worn slippers.
I watch her soak crusts of bread
in pan drippings, take her fork and balance
bits of lamb and potatoes on top.
She always ate last, but best of all.
 
I think of her long, un-mothered life -
just twelve when she boarded
the boat to Ellis Island, a child
sent alone by her family to seek a better life.
She was not blue-blood, never lost
her accent or peasant ways,
heard American neighbors call her
immigrant or less.
 
I think of her homeland under seige.
I could be dying there now,
our home downed by mortar shells.
I could be eating rationed bread,
the only bones those of slaughtered sons.
I could be cleaning a daughter's ravaged flesh.
 
I want to cry out to grandma,
cry out so the heavens will open
and angels bring her closer.
I want to hold her, smell her skin,
bury my head in her feeble shoulders,
run my fingers through her white hair,
kiss away her sadness.
 
I want to cover her table 
with a white Damask cloth,
set out a feast,  exchange
her black babooshka for the
milliner's finest red felt hat.
I want to thank her for my life,
say that I understand her sacrifice.
 
I want to bless her bones.
 
	- Jackie Huss Hallerberg
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