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.