Yeast on Passover: To Lynn

Yeast on Passover: To Lynn

I've wanted to write this letter to you for a while.

I get that you are the ring finger....
You are the ring finger cut from the hand of God.
You miss father.
You fuck father....
You fuck father finger....
I've seen it
And I've heard it
And I've carried it with me.
You've shown your red solitary circle
Aimed and taut, puffed up cherry-plumb.
Those familiar wings stem from the sides.
And yes, you are the red circle with white wings.


Enough time has passed now
That I can put my thoughts into words
Without trailing off into nonsensical obscenities:
And here they are,
These collection of thoughts
Formed into vowels and consonants
Coded, shaped, and aimed at you.

 Here goes....

You're a nasty, terrible woman.

I mean that....
Sincerely.

It feels good say,
Though it shames me, too....

I'm 44 years old now,

So I'm no child,

But still it feels good for me to call you out
Just like a child would.

When I was a kid, I used to sit mute in the back seat of the car
While you and my father drove around
In the Southern California summer sun.
There, for my one weekend a year,
I got the privilege to tag along

And be a part of your Nordstrom dreams.
Sad....

I always felt like an obligatory afterthought.

I hated every second

Of my time then.

I don't know how I feel about that time now.

Now that Dad's dead,

I have only ashes.
The bag of ash still sits on my sister's shelf.
I initially told her to throw them away
In the trash,
But she refused
Believing one day I'd come to my senses and take them.
Perhaps I will.
I don't know.

We all watched Dad gasp his last breath in that Georgia hospital.

My brother, sister, and I saw him so close to death.
He could not be pulled back
And we all wanted a merciful end,

But you kept insisting that the doctors try something new,

Something more.
Why?




I strongly believe that his death was your divine, sanguine moment.
You played the tormented widow so well
Even while you invented
New tortures
(to rival Munchausen by Proxy).



You reveled in your role
And sat so stoic
In the chaise lounge
With your wide-brimmed hat
And oversized sun-glasses.
It was your moment to command the world
There in the hospital.

Mrs. Doctor Frankenstein.
That's what I called you when I got home.
When the initial shock wore off,
I sat in front of an 8-track recorder
And wrote a song to capture how I felt about you
And the whole situation.

MRS. DOCTOR FRANKENSTIEN

"Place the incubator in his lungs.

Watch him gag on plastic tubes.

Watch him cough up blood.

Watch him roll his eyes

And plead for help."

That was savagery.

When he died,

It seemed to me that he feared you.

He couldn't speak, of course,

But he kept locking eyes with me
From his frozen place on the bed.

The plastic tubes snaked from his lungs

And that machine made gasping noises.

You wouldn't let me talk to him.
Do you remember that?

But the last time I saw him,
I'd invented a reason to go back to his hospital room.

Visiting hours had ended,
And I claimed I'd left my sweatshirt.
The nurse escorted me back into his room.
"Do you mind if I speak to him?" I asked.
"Not at all," she said.  "Go ahead."

I stooped by his bed and I whispered,

"Go Dad.  If you can't stay, don't think you have to."
The sound of my own voice made me cry.

"I love you."  I said, "I always did.

Leave if you need to, Dad.

It's ok."

When I arrived back in the lobby,
You asked me what I said to my father.
I think you knew what I'd said,
And I think you hated me for it.



Linda, in my family's history, you are an asterisk.

You don't make it on the family tree.
Some branches are best burned.

To me, you will always be

A yeasty gash who infected my father

With a fatal disease.

That's how you're known to me:

Yeast on passover.

It does no good to labor over anger,
But it's equally absurd to brush it aside
And play like it doesn't matter.
When the great father divides the wheat from the chaff,
I pray he'll take away the bitter side of me
That felt the need to write these words.

I pray that you can forgive me, too.

_______

רציתי לכתוב לך את המכתב הזה כבר זמן מה.

אני מבין שאתה הקמיצה....
אתה הקמיצה שנכרתה מיד אלוהים.
אתה מתגעגע לאבא.
אתה מזדיין אבא....
אצבע מזדיינת של אבא...
ראיתי את זה
ואני שמעתי את זה
ונשאתי את זה איתי.
הראית את המעגל הבודד האדום שלך
מכוון ומתוח, נפוח דובדבן.
הכנפיים המוכרות הללו נובעות מהצדדים.
וכן, אתה העיגול האדום עם כנפיים לבנות.


מספיק זמן עבר עכשיו
שאוכל לבטא את המחשבות שלי במילים
בלי להיסגר לתוך גסויות מופרכות:
והנה הם,
אוסף המחשבות האלה
נוצר לתנועות ועיצורים
מקודד, עיצב ומכוון אליך.

 הנה זה בא....


את אישה מגעילה ואיומה.
אני מתכוון לזה....
בכנות.
זה מרגיש טוב תגיד,
למרות שזה גם מבייש אותי....
אני בן 44 עכשיו,
אז אני לא ילד,
אבל בכל זאת זה מרגיש טוב בשבילי לקרוא לך החוצה
בדיוק כמו שילד יעשה.


כשהייתי ילד, נהגתי לשבת אילם במושב האחורי של המכונית
בזמן שאתה ואבי הסתובבת
בשמש הקיץ של דרום קליפורניה.
שם, לסוף השבוע האחד שלי בשנה,
קיבלתי את הזכות לתייג
ותהיו חלק מחלומות נורדסטרום שלכם.
עָצוּב....

תמיד הרגשתי כמו מחשבה שלאחר מחייבת.