Doren Robbins DVAYDA

 DVAYDA

 

Always the precise way she put things together, sewed things

together, delight singing in Yiddish and Russian doing it, her wrist pains

doing it—delighting in theirs.

 

And always her offering more, which was her direct madness—sometimes

endearing, sometimes irritating: her "more." Made patches and sewed

more patches more; cooked for you, refused to let you help more, refused

 

to let you refuse more, loved you more than you wanted, more than you

asked, more than you feared.

 

And what a dramatic lover she must've been, whether she meant it or not.

What a liquefying opera she must've surged and spilled over if it was

anything like her singing, and her filling bowls and piling bowls with fruit. 

 

I alternated being welcoming and turning my back to her.

I was never easy, at ease, never the kind of spongy matter I needed to be

to endure or con someone so I might thrive on that attention pouring and

 

pouring. Maybe some lack. Maybe a panel missing someplace in me.

But I don't give a damn, I'm not the available vacuum, there's a floor

underneath what I contain and receive. What a floor.

 

And even as I say it, even as I'm backing away from her again, I'm kissing

the lids and brows of my great aunt's eyes, I'm floored by her "more"

whatever she meant by it, whomever she really sought to fill with it,

 

or empty herself from, keeping her pot roasts and honey cakes flying out

of the oven, her kugels flying sweet enough,

or a little more, "A bisel more?"

 

piled on the table steaming for you, more?

"Ziskeyt sweetness," more? And leaving the table

with her watering can in the middle of serving,

 

in the middle of eating, feeding and also singing to her plants,

watering and dusting them and showing how she used to

cut scraps for her two dogs

 

dead all these years, mimicking the way she pleaded to each

and how they yelped for the brisket dangling from her mouth,

and giving a little more to the smaller, smarter one who

came down from her lap and waited quiet under the table.

Even while she talked about the two dogs, she mixed up nephews

with philodendrons, sister-in-law’s diseases with the purest garlic

and fish broth, mixed up longing and praise for her husband with imported

 

holiday plates, still talking about her dogs. She wasn't just

talking about dogs, it was always her ritual, her overflowing,

she was talking about her code of more, even in her endearments

 

praising dogs, it seeped through, the likeness of something else

connecting one ritual of more with another, more than dogs and tailoring,

more than carefully trimmed meat scraps, more than

 

getting on a downtown bus to find the strongest buttons because you

wouldn't know where to look. More than setting aside more for her

favorite niece, and a little more for the one who hated the favorite.