I sat in synagogue Saturday morning staring up at the stained-glass
star above the bima, first through my left eye, then my right.
They see differently now. On the left the light a gentle yellow.
On the right, startlingly blue, as if a fluorescent fixture had been
switched on. So easy to say there’s more than one way to look at things.
I can never follow the prayers and forget kaddish is part of each service,
the prayer for the dead, sorrow amid joy—always both.
When the rabbi called for mourners, I stood and said, “Sister,”
naming her in the Hebrew required for such occasions.
You’re not just you but your parents as well: son of, daughter of.
I felt like an imposter—had not thought of her for days. Whenever I do
it’s her beautiful hands I remember, her emerald and pearl ring.
And the trip to Loehmann’s on Fordham Road when I talked her into buying
the butterfly print silk to wear to her prom. Such colors!
Or shopping for clothes for our mother’s funeral—neither of us, so young,
having anything appropriate to wear. My dress gray, hers dark green.
We worried neighbors would call it a shanda, seeing the bags from Alexander’s.
We usually took the bus to the store, but when I think myself back
I’m climbing the stairs, token in hand, of the elevated station at Jerome,
the stop before Woodlawn and the cemetery. The doors of the number 4
open, and I make my way through car after car to the front of the train
and stand, balancing, looking ahead out the glass, waiting for the moment
daylight gives way to tunnel, and then all that’s visible in the dark
are signal lights, keeping us headed straight in the only possible direction.
Avra Wing’s poetry appeared most recently in Santa Fe Literary Review. She is the author of two novels: Angie, I Says (Grand Central), which was made into a movie; and After Isaac (Olinville). She leads a writing workshop at the Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York.
