DITCHED

I thought the phrase was

“dull as dishwater,”

and it made sense

during my turn

to clean up after the Sabbath meal,

rinsing chicken fat and beet blood

from seven plates,

turning the sink water bleak

as a Wisconsin winter sky,

darkened further by the dregs

of concord Manischewitz

from crystal shot glasses,

allowed even this eleven-year-old

the sweet swallow

of sudden warmth

that would, years later,

come looking for me.

 

 

The moment dinner ended,

my older sister and brother bolted

out the back door toward

lives I didn’t yet know

how to imagine, but understood

to be far more interesting than mine.

I dried and put away dishes

as the candles sputtered, my parents

somewhere, never quite there.

 

 

At sixty-one, I learned

it’s “dull as ditchwater,”

and once I pictured it,

that made sense too, but

it stole something from me:

the poetry I had made of

leftovers and loneliness,

and the yearning for a life

I still don’t know how to imagine.