a well-educated girl need know no more
than how to sign her name,
read the women’s prayer book,
do a few simple sums,
write a letter to the parents
of her betrothed.
Mama says,
Fifteen is not too young
to be thinking of such things.
But to me
that word
[wife]
is barred and barbed
threatening
to hold me down
when all I want
is to stretch my wings
to ride the fickle currents
beyond the reach
of any cage.
not one bit
Miriam says I can borrow
her father’s copy of The Cossacks
if I teach her to sing Kalinka.
I am not supposed to know the words
to Russian songs—
even silly ones
about little pine trees.
So we hide
behind a kalyna bush
and I bruise my palms
beating the rhythm slowly
then faster and faster
while she rolls
shushing syllables
around in her mouth
like a hot gulp of broth.
The rhythm gallops
out of control
and we are left
giggling
gasping for breath
before we begin
all over
again.
At the end of it
I hold Tolstoy in my hands.
Back home,
I tuck the book
beneath my shawl.
A lie
in the shape
of pointy corners
hard edges
against my skin.
A lie I have become
all too comfortable
living with.
A lie
I cannot live without.
Kneeling beside the kitchen stove,
I stretch out my hands
as if to warm them
by the banked fire.
(they only quiver
a little)
When Mama looks away
I slip the book
under the stove
under the meat pan.
Hanna said
she will trade a book of short stories
by Ivan Turgenev
if I teach the song to her tomorrow.
I do not mind
a scratchy throat,
sore palms for a day or two.
I do not mind one bit.
yarid
Twice a week
I walk with Mama
to the market in the center of town
to buy fresh goods
for the store.
She wraps a scarf around her head
settles a basket
in the crook of her arm,
strides from stall to stall
stepping around the leavings
of horses, goats
and milking cows.
Her voice cuts across the clamor
of clucking chickens
and squealing pigs,
above the babble
of peasants pushing carts
pushing a sale
on anyone
who will listen.
Though Mama would never say
she regrets her life
I can see in the confident
cast of her voice
on market day
she relishes
this
her one
place
of power.
The cold crop
of vegetables
are stringy, the hens stingy
with their laying
but spring is here;
the air around the market quivers
with the white-knuckled grip
of peasants grasping
to last a few more weeks
when starvation
fades to the shadows
for a few
sun-kissed months.
While Mama barters with a man
unloading a wagon
of canned goods from Kiev,
I lift a corner of my scarf
to cover my nose
to block the stench of so many animals
crammed into one space.
With a glance over my shoulder
and a sidle between stalls,
I make my way to the wool cart,
greet Anushka
in Russian
in a quiet undertone;
I conduct a trade of my own.
Behind the cover
of our huddled shoulders
she unfolds a page
flowing with words
like water
rippling
over hummocks
and small boulders:
a poem.
A whole poem for me today.
Anushka whispers,
I scribble translations
in the margin,
hand over my kopeck
with a smile.
If it would not draw
too much attention
I would kiss her on the cheek
for this lovely
lovely gift.
secrets
Miriam’s family has a farm
with chickens and goats
and a big draft horse
with delicate
white-tufted hooves.
If I stand on my tiptoes
wrap my arms
around his neck
if I stretch—
reach for my
fingertips
they still do not touch.
Sometimes
when I am done
with all my chores
at the grocery store
Mama lets me walk
down the dirt road to the farm.
Miriam leads the gelding
out into the fallow pasture
we take turns
hefting each other up
onto his high, wide back.
He trots obligingly
though he has already worked a long day
clearing fields,
dragging
the heavy plow behind.
I whisper secrets
into his mane,
things I tell
no one else.
shul
The Yiddish word for synagogue
means school.
There is little we hold
in greater esteem
than learning
(of course,
just for men)
than study
(of course,
just the holy books).
I learned to read
and write Yiddish
by lingering
in the kitchen to polish
the samovar
the kiddush cup
the candlesticks,
to wipe
the grease
from the cast-iron stove
when the tutor came
for my brothers.
When I was young I wished
I had been born a boy
so I could study, too.
Now I wish instead
that I was born into a family
where a
girl’s yearning for stories
for learning
for understanding
is not driven out
like a foreign body
excised from the skin.
In our home
only Yiddish is permitted.
No Russian.
Papa forbids it.
It is the only way he has
to protest.
But, Papa,
I say,
all there is to learn, all those books
—philosophy, medicine, history—
they are all in Russian!
Enough, Clara,
Mama says.
You are a young woman now.
It is enough.
Papa says,
Politics are not for girls.
In an idle conversation, he hears
the shouts of the mob
in a simple poem he sees
the blood frenzy
the way a word
can twist
slur
cut.
I know this,
yet I could not hold back
my need to learn
things
if I tried.
At the kitchen table
covered with prayer books
Marcus leans in
nodding
smug
Benjamin flushes
flinching away
from the same
tired fight.
I want to yell
rail
rant
but I know
it will do me
no good.
I learned long ago
to douse these angry flames
to make the coals burn
low
but steady.
lies
In this life,
lies
take the shape of words
printed on ivory paper
stitched into neat bundles
wrapped in linen casings.
It has taken years
of stolen moments
whispered conversations
borrowed books stashed
like contraband—
years of lies
but I am nearly fluent in Russian.
When life offers me
something
beyond
this
I am ready.
preparation
Friday mornings
the store floods
with women.
They come from all over the shtetl
clutching the kopecks
they have saved all week
to buy something extra for Shabbos dinner
a jar of honey
a potato to thicken the soup
a tin of oil to crisp the fish.
Mama bolts the door
when the last of her customers has gone.
We are both tired
from scrubbing the house
the night before.
Tomorrow,
we can rest.
I follow Mama through the curtain
at the back
into the kitchen.
She hums
as she stokes the fire,
the furrows in her brow
smoothing,
her hands settling
into the rhythm
of ritual.
She cinches her apron
around her round waist;
through a long, deep breath
a thread of song
escapes her lips.
I crack an egg
knead the dough
set it aside
to rise
in a warm nook
above the stove.
I clear the table
spread our best cloth
over pocked wood
arrange the dishes
the kiddush cup
the candlesticks,
snip a bouquet of twigs
from the bushes
surrounding the house.
I walk to meet Benjamin and Nathan
they run through the meadow
a brace of trout dangling
from their bobbing
fishing poles.
I clean the fish myself
behind the coal shed
so Mama’s sacred space
will not be disturbed by the fuss
and rush
of carefree boys.
When I was young
I fished for slippery trout in the stream
on Friday afternoons, too.
I had a pole of my own;
I ran through the meadow
free as a bird
swinging a string of fish
behind me
before all this business
of being a woman
took over.
dance
Hanna and I
would never have been friends
if we did not both
love to dance.
Though we are confined
to the same shtetl,
her family is infinitely wealthier
than mine.
Hanna was sent away to school
when she was a girl.
She knew three languages
by the time she returned to us.
But she was generous
in her friendships
not too great
to dance
with the daughter
of a poor scholar
and an even poorer farmer.
Hanna shares her books
Miriam shares the debates
she and her father wage
well into the night
over politics
the coming revolution
the attacks
against the Jews.
Miriam and Hanna and I
meet in the woods on Saturdays
to dance under the trees
to trace the pattern of
budding branches
drawing shadows against the sky.
When the weather warms
we will dangle our feet in streams filled
with long grasses
lying down
like ribbons rippling in the water.
We go our separate ways
when the sun begins to fade;
at night
I wait until the house is silent,
light a stubby candle
creep out of bed
my heart high
in my throat
my breath short
and quick.
I tuck into a quiet corner
read my Tolstoy
in the yawning shadows.
herbs
In the meadow
behind the shtetl
pale shoots have begun to sprout
from the skeletons
of wild sage bushes.
I worry a downy leaf
between my fingers.
When Nathan was only three,
his lungs filled
his throat constricted
his pale face sweated with fever.
I sat at the foot of his bed
while the doctor
dug through his kit of instruments
listened to my brother’s wheezing breath
spoke in hushed
foreboding tones.
I had not yet seen a book
on physiology
or medicine
but the Russian folk songs
I had learned in secret
held instructions—
which herb to seek
for a cough
which bark to boil
for a fever
which berry to crush
to soothe the skin.
I searched the meadow
for sage
wild thyme
and mint
to make a compress
for Nathan’s chest,
gathered the splayed white petals
of the kalyna flower
dried them in the shade
brewed an infusion
to quiet his cough.
I do not know
if it was the doctor
and his instruments
Papa’s prayers
or my poultices
that pulled Nathan through
the worst of it,
but my fingers
have never forgotten that feeling
of being so very
necessary.
Though the sickness
has shown no sign of returning,
Nathan has always been pale.
Pink splotches bloom
high on his cheeks;
Mama tests the heat of his brow
every morning
just in case
thyme and mint and sage grow
in the kitchen garden,
bunches of dried herbs
hang from the attic rafters
just in case
my book of medicine
hides with the rest
just in case.
lost
I heft the bundle of clothes
ready for washing
in the river
swing it over my shoulder,
step slowly through
the hastily thawing ground
on the path past the outhouse;
careful not to slip,
tip the bundle
into the mud.
The door to the kitchen
bangs open
Papa fills the frame,
his beard blunt
as an ax
my books raised high
over his head
in a hand
shaking with rage.
My hands rise up
on their own,
the laundry tumbles
out of its neat bundle,
wet shadows spreading
on threadbare cloth
like bloodstains on a bound wound.
I run inside.
Please, Papa,
please!
The kitchen stove
squeals
as he pries open the door,
hurls
my books
one
by
one
into the fire.
I sink to my knees
in front of the flames—
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