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Do You Think Your Father

By Lesléa Newman

DO YOU THINK YOUR FATHER

would take me to the theatre?"
A woman pulls me towards her,
her pointed red nails digging

into the doughy flesh of my bare
upper arm. It is a hot August
afternoon, made hotter still

by the heat of the oven
which I have just opened
to take out a pan of kugel

a neighbor brought by and needed
to be warmed. How did I wind up
alone in the kitchen with this

woman who does not look unlike
my mother? Styled and stiff
thinning brown hair dried out

from too many years of dyeing,
lipstick two shades too dark,
forehead lined like notebook paper

hope springing eternal
in her made-up myopic eyes.
I drop the metal pan of food

on the counter with a clatter,
open a drawer near the sink
and lift my mother's gleaming

kitchen knife. What is this woman's
name? Edna, Edith, Estelle,
Esther! A woman my mother used

to play canasta with and never
particularly liked. "She cheats,"
my mother told me on a scorching

afternoon not that long ago.
"She picks out all the cashews
in the bridge mix. And she has eyes

for your father." I cut the kugel
into even, sharp-edged squares
missing my even sharper-edged mother

who would curl her lip and shoot
me a silent "I told you so" look
to hear Esther ask me if my father

would take her to the theatre
the very afternoon after
the morning of my mother's funeral.