And how late they were late, themselves, the guests again, us, and darkness was upon the face of our mothers, tired and too much mascara, too; the soup was without form and void, if still soup, in need of a starch, mushroom, and the light, it was in from the fridge, as no one had shut it. The candle, the candles, a handful. A diaper was new, unbuttoned and pinned, the buttondowned shirts of His father, Him powdered, and topically salved; a sweater gotten, too, on which was writ in stitch the word Ben, which was also His name, Benjamin was, or the name Ima said by which He should know the wait, was to know the wait, is still waiting. As the sweater was too small, it was draped over a knee, which was bare. As for His Ima, He called her, her other names, which are as complex as dates, at least, as complicated and strange, were Hanna one room and Wanda the next. All got cold, freezing, which was why the knee’s sweater; then the kitchen froze, icicles up from the depths of the fridge, and so His mother opened the oven in which the chicken was becoming baked chicken and then — suddenly, through the oven, two-by-two and helping each other, stepping high and ducking so as not to hit their heads, again, so it’s been said, so we’ve been told, their glasses fogged and mouths stuffed with ties and necklaces against pain, sucking in their hunger and thirst, holding their loose suits and dresses so as not to get snagged on wireracks or stained with the pooled juice of the poultry baked in its blood is what’s been related to us, that suddenly, and again, into the kitchen, through the oven and its heat of nine hells, marched in their guests: how they might themselves have remembered it to their own kinder had they lived past that Sabbath, that Shabbos, whatever the difference, if difference there be. Hello, hug and kiss. Shut the oven after. Some offered to help prepare. Others noshed on ingredients left out. Wiped steam, saliva from their lorgnettes, with the linings of the pockets of their husbands, who were pockets themselves. And their pants, door-to-door and the rest, presumptuous enough help yourself, they sat down at the table: holding their irascible silver, tines frothing stock.
It was. One day, same night. Good or not, true or told. Israel said Kiddush, the prayer over the wine, the washing and blessing Hamotzi lechem min ha aretz it went and only then may the passing begin — the feeding of the baby, too, don’t forget who He’s big enough already to be sitting at table in a regular seat, and grown enough to be supping on anything served, even every distraction or so deft enough to take an unnippled sip at the wine of His eldest sister, Rubina; at the other head of the table opposite His father wrecked at the foot He’s soon slumped, piss and kaka, veingravy dazed, drunk on His sisters’ juicewatered wine and the guzzly blood of the beasts.
