4 new poems by Julie Enszer
I gathered stones for weeks
large, rounded, flat.
Picked up on walks,
deposited in the foyer
with shoes and coats,
each one was larger than
the last as my resolve
grew and grew.
THE DAY YOU WROTE OUR NAMES IN THE BOOK OF THE DEA
I was wearing the red woolen cape I inherited from your mother.
Her legacy to me was a mauve and cyan beaded purse, an orange scarf
(which I’ll never wear), two plastic crates, and this red cape.
We had arrived at All Saint’s Day mass early for ritual instructions.
I was out of my element, even though the priest talked about Jews
enslaved in Egypt, which I assumed was just for me. You, mourning
your mother, were instructed to process, slowly, after the homily.
Then candle in hand, before heading to the pew, you signed us in
only to realize mid-mass when the priest instructed parishioners
to pray for the dead inscribed in the book in the back that our names
were on the list, which I confess, freaked me out. I searched my purse
for white out, then hissed at you to fix it. Fix it. Fix. It. You did.
You wrote your mother’s first name over your first name and my sister’s
over mine—then you told me you initialed it like any other legal document.
I put on my cape. We walked outside. It was winter: sunny and cold.
So much could be written about what we did not know then.
PECAN PIE
My sister wants advice.
Silence would starve her.
I tell her, Edit. She doesn’t understand.
She vomits our life onto the page—
stark action, obsession and feeling.
Her feelings: raw, unprocessed.
I tell her, No one wants to read
our unfiltered lives. Not even I.
I remind her, People want to consume us
cooked, refined, warm. I implore,
Gather ingredients. Mix. Blend. Spoon. Bake.
She brings me a raw egg, dark corn syrup,
brown sugar, pecans in their shells.
She tells me, Eat.
MY NAME IS ETHYL
My father wanted to name
his daughters Ethyl, Methyl, and Propyl;
I would have been Ethyl, the eldest,
perhaps that explains my affinity
for another Ethel—Rosenberg—
who I saw again this weekend
at the refurbished American Art Museum;
first, a photograph of her with Julius
in a paddy wagon during their trials—
it’s trying to remember the pain
of Ethel, so young and so beautiful
in that hard-working way of socialist women;
then, I saw a sketch in the portrait gallery:
Ethel’s disembodied head—no neck—
adapted from a snapshot for a protest
poster; the artist captured
her jaw set with purpose,
her clear eyes so certainly innocent,
her frizzy hair, a utilitarian halo,
around her determined head, oh, yes,
Ethel. . .but my father would not
have named me for you, Ethel, rather
for those basic organic molecules —
all grown you are as basic to me
as ethyl to a student of chemistry;
although when I was younger
I wanted to be my sister, heir to the name
Propyl, I imagined us calling
her Iso for short and my other sister Di,
but the joke would have been
only in our family—it would never
have translated to the hard-scrabble
streets of Saginaw—for that reason
and many others, my mother resisted
my father’s chemical compounds;
we have bland names, we blend in,
until you meet us, until we speak,
then you can imagine Ethel,
her grey coat, sturdy shoes, curly hair,
that look of defiance in our eyes.
IN VIRGINIA’S MIND
I gathered stones for weeks
large, rounded, flat.
Picked up on walks,
deposited in the foyer
with shoes and coats,
each one was larger than
the last as my resolve
grew and grew.
On March 25th, I placed
them all in coat pockets,
skirt pockets, even my socks
and shoes. They were heavy
and cumbersome until
I reached the river,
until I walked in, then stones
pulled me down, even as
water buoyed me up.
www.JulieREnszer.com
large, rounded, flat.
Picked up on walks,
deposited in the foyer
with shoes and coats,
each one was larger than
the last as my resolve
grew and grew.
THE DAY YOU WROTE OUR NAMES IN THE BOOK OF THE DEA
I was wearing the red woolen cape I inherited from your mother.
Her legacy to me was a mauve and cyan beaded purse, an orange scarf
(which I’ll never wear), two plastic crates, and this red cape.
We had arrived at All Saint’s Day mass early for ritual instructions.
I was out of my element, even though the priest talked about Jews
enslaved in Egypt, which I assumed was just for me. You, mourning
your mother, were instructed to process, slowly, after the homily.
Then candle in hand, before heading to the pew, you signed us in
only to realize mid-mass when the priest instructed parishioners
to pray for the dead inscribed in the book in the back that our names
were on the list, which I confess, freaked me out. I searched my purse
for white out, then hissed at you to fix it. Fix it. Fix. It. You did.
You wrote your mother’s first name over your first name and my sister’s
over mine—then you told me you initialed it like any other legal document.
I put on my cape. We walked outside. It was winter: sunny and cold.
So much could be written about what we did not know then.
PECAN PIE
My sister wants advice.
Silence would starve her.
I tell her, Edit. She doesn’t understand.
She vomits our life onto the page—
stark action, obsession and feeling.
Her feelings: raw, unprocessed.
I tell her, No one wants to read
our unfiltered lives. Not even I.
I remind her, People want to consume us
cooked, refined, warm. I implore,
Gather ingredients. Mix. Blend. Spoon. Bake.
She brings me a raw egg, dark corn syrup,
brown sugar, pecans in their shells.
She tells me, Eat.
MY NAME IS ETHYL
My father wanted to name
his daughters Ethyl, Methyl, and Propyl;
I would have been Ethyl, the eldest,
perhaps that explains my affinity
for another Ethel—Rosenberg—
who I saw again this weekend
at the refurbished American Art Museum;
first, a photograph of her with Julius
in a paddy wagon during their trials—
it’s trying to remember the pain
of Ethel, so young and so beautiful
in that hard-working way of socialist women;
then, I saw a sketch in the portrait gallery:
Ethel’s disembodied head—no neck—
adapted from a snapshot for a protest
poster; the artist captured
her jaw set with purpose,
her clear eyes so certainly innocent,
her frizzy hair, a utilitarian halo,
around her determined head, oh, yes,
Ethel. . .but my father would not
have named me for you, Ethel, rather
for those basic organic molecules —
all grown you are as basic to me
as ethyl to a student of chemistry;
although when I was younger
I wanted to be my sister, heir to the name
Propyl, I imagined us calling
her Iso for short and my other sister Di,
but the joke would have been
only in our family—it would never
have translated to the hard-scrabble
streets of Saginaw—for that reason
and many others, my mother resisted
my father’s chemical compounds;
we have bland names, we blend in,
until you meet us, until we speak,
then you can imagine Ethel,
her grey coat, sturdy shoes, curly hair,
that look of defiance in our eyes.
IN VIRGINIA’S MIND
I gathered stones for weeks
large, rounded, flat.
Picked up on walks,
deposited in the foyer
with shoes and coats,
each one was larger than
the last as my resolve
grew and grew.
On March 25th, I placed
them all in coat pockets,
skirt pockets, even my socks
and shoes. They were heavy
and cumbersome until
I reached the river,
until I walked in, then stones
pulled me down, even as
water buoyed me up.
www.JulieREnszer.com