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Tryst Poetry by John Eivaz |
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Tryst Poetry by John Eivaz |
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In a run-down apartment house their home smelled old, cloistered in old-country. They lived with sunflower seeds, dried fruit, pickled vegetables. The wooden box over the toilet, the chain scared me. So exposed - what if it didn't work? The most tenuous thing in their home, more so than the doilies, and those tarnished silver trays holding sweets, or the old TV with its bad reception of sports barely noticed, the image always threatening to disappear. Auntie and Uncle moved slowly, and I loved their smiles. It takes a lifetime to become. When it was time to go, Sunday nearly dark, Auntie gave my Lithuanian mother Ball jars of bushala - dense yogurt soup holding celery, spinach and chard suspended. Eat it hot or cold - I liked it warmed. I later learned how to make bushala myself, was excited when chard was cheap, added yellow peppers and jalapenos sliced (when they should have been left whole) - my Assyrian father loved the spiciness, into his eighties. The least I could do. Ball jar, bali - Auntie always called me bali - a diminutive endearment - Bali Ha'i, ("well, his sister's nephew was my father's uncle's ... he's Uncle, Johnny, just call him Uncle") my Lithuanian mother took me to the movies in the afternoons when I was a child, The Mouse That Roared, The L-Shaped Room, South Pacific, whatever was playing on South Broadway, within walking distance. The changing of colors, Bloody Mary's Bali Ha'i - the haphazard exposures on quiet afternoons - Ball, bali, Bali Ha'i, bushala: relatives, toilets, and the tenuousness of black and white TV ... Been a while since I cooked the soup. I write and write when I'm lucky, let David Lynch wash over me now like those tropical colors once did, can't stand musicals except for one. My mother died young, my father old, for some reason I can't help but look to the future pained and expectant, perhaps I will go to the market.
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