Thanksgiving
Day Stands Alone with Me in the Kitchen
by Ariana
D. Den Bleyker
I.
The
way my grandmother pronounced tacchino,
I
imagined it bambino, cheeks red
from
bearing down hard, or a paper lantern, or
a
piece of jewelry tucked away, the pearls strangely gleaming—
bambina—part jewel—a hybrid star punched
out
of a
puzzle looking to find me in a girl’s creative universe,
little,
or a princess in disguise—all shimmer.
We
won’t forget the bambina, bambina, bambina, dismissed
from
the kitchen, supper—twirling, twirling
as
the ballerina I knew I was because of tacchino—
suddenly
uttered like a magic word.
Though
I grew taller & stronger, budding fruit
just
waiting for the sun to breathe itself into me,
I
never wanted to be a woman—
more
importantly—one of these women
holding
moss covered stones, ancient wells, trailing vines
entangled
in their eyes—their treasures concealed
in
canyons where I’d float on their pale hazel-blue waves
or
fully immerse myself there, could submerge
myself
as the beloved or that vivid hope, molten,
hardened
around my youth—
2.
While
at the counter preparing Thanksgiving dinner,
these
two women speak to me.
I
imagine them walking down rocky paths toward me,
strong
Italian women returning from fields, graceful women
carrying
baskets of figs. What I know
of
these women, I know from only what I see, photographs
of
San Angelo, of my mother’s childhood stories—
most
of them from watching my mother, my grandmother,
her strong arms lifting sheets out of cold water
or
from the way she stepped back, wiping her hand
on
her apron, her jars of roasted red peppers
suspended
in olive oil. I saw who I’d become
in
these women as they worked,
matriarchs
grinning & happy in fields
spilling
their bounty into their arms, giving away
baskets
of eggplants, loaves of bread. I see them
in
my daughter, the same unending energy,
quick
mind, that hand, open & extended to the world.
When
I clean the kitchen counter, I turn, laughing
at
my daughter, I remember the last time
I said
goodbye to my grandmother as my daughter turns
to
me now, as I turn & I see my grandmother walking
toward
us, through the fields,
behind
her hundreds of girls dressed in black.
* *
* * *
Ariana D. Den Bleyker is a Pittsburgh native
currently residing in New York’s Hudson Valley where she is a wife
and mother of two. When she’s not writing, she’s spending time with her family
and every once in a while sleeps. She is the author of three collections,
sixteen chapbooks, a novelette, an experimental memoir, and three crime
novellas. She hopes you'll fall in love with her words.
