Super-sized Series

 Happy Thanksgiving 

 

 

 

Caliban, Laurie Byro’s cat and her father would sit out on the porch at Thanksgiving in their hats while her father smoked. Even before doctors diagnosed her father as terminal, Caliban wouldn’t leave his side and after he died, Caliban refused to enter his room. They are both gone now.

 

Thanksgiving with Cousin Fagan by Laurie Byro

“It is never too late to repent.” – Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist.

We are grateful to this sly crone, chain-smoker, never alone
who fills the table with things she has borrowed at their owner’s
invitation. Her lost boys have no vocation, but they are chained
to the leg of her table, trained by the Mistress of the nicked Spoon.
She releases her demons into a bottle of Cabernet sauvignon.
She doesn’t really indulge, just a sip. Her faults are common ones,
bread and nicotine. She has worked hard her entire life, learning
the art of deception. Her husband left her with many lives to feed.
When Cabaret plays at the old Sun & Surf she rattles her bracelets
to the tune of $, $, $. She sings us out of the movie door. We are groggy
from the dark play. The bountiful table has everything anyone could desire.
Motel napkins, she has stashed, pilfered paper towels. She implores
us to snatch a loaf of bread to be used for stuffing under a sign marked
“Needy.” It is there for the taking, the Acme is closed for the holiday.
She chuckles. She claims that Donald Trump is just like JFK.
Like a drunken pair from the Looking Glass, we have landed
into some strange beehive. The hive is buzzing and slick
with excess. Her chain-gang drones murmur abiding devotion. But this
is the Jersey Shore and the tide is rising. Our Governor, as ever,
offers us no prayer. Besides, we are Jersey and we are savvy. The coolers
we have brought have been emptied by her guzzlers and revelers.
We clutch the tops of them like surfboards, leave her nest steeped
with tainted honey, make our escape. The bite of feral air as we shake
our heads, does us both good. We tenderly nurse a turkey leg, a feast
from her leavings, use the coolers as makeshift chairs. We survive her grubby
talents. Surely, her gang of dear boys, giddy with her instructions will summon
us back? My purse will fill with rain, we have nothing they want now. I add salt,
long for next year. I mourn a bit over losing them– Cuz Fagin never instructed
how to measure gain versus loss. Still I wonder what they had already, couldn’t use
and no longer wanted. How they were trained to sneak, to sabotage, to squander.

From New and Selected Poetry of Laurie Byro

 

 

Thanksgiving with Alzheimer’s by Margaret Coombs

Dad sits at the head
of a table set for twenty-four.
We begin to pass the food
and he tries to speak
about what it’s like to see
the feast displayed,
his family in each seat,
even those he barely knows:
great-granddaughters in festive dresses,
great-grandsons with buzz cuts,
the grandsons-in-law scrolling
through their phones,
keeping an eye on the kids
while their wives visit.
He removes his glasses,
wipes his eyes. His words drift.
I exchange glances with my sisters,
my mother, tell him
We are your legacy,
None of us would be here without you.
He weeps a little more,
regains his composure
at the offer of mashed potatoes.
 

 

Thanksgiving Pizza by Wilda Morris

About holiday meals, my husband said,
I always look forward to them with dread.
Do you know what I really would like?
What I’ve wished for since I was just a little a tyke?
You should be able to figure it out—
it’s something you could bring about.
It’s pizza, of course, my favorite dish.
It’s always been my favorite; it’s exactly what I wish.

His request created an unhappy plight
for I was convinced that it just wasn’t right
to replace the traditions of holiday fare.
That thought was something I hardly could bear.
But I sat down and tried to come up with a plan
for a compromise to please my own special man—
or a way to dissuade him from ever again
making a request that would cause me such pain.

I decided to make pizza just this one time.
I thought maybe once it would not be a crime.
I would top it just right for a Thanksgiving feast.
with chunks of turkey and stuffing at least,
and cranberries, of course, would give it pizzaz.
I would roast wedges of pumpkin (much as
I’ve roasted potatoes) to use as a topping,
I won’t mind doing all of that chopping.

To contrast in color, on this pizza I could
put dollops of mashed potato—that will be good.
Instead of cheese, I will top it with gravy—
the kind I learned to make when he was in the Navy.
That still leaves the question of how I should make
the crust—maybe pumpkin bread, which I like to bake?
No, I don’t think that will do. Nor will any of this.
I’ll just make sure I serve him his turkey with a very big kiss
 

 

 

Judith Waller Carroll’s daughter, Jesssica and her husband, Josh and twins Tova and Jack

 

Memory Making by Judith Waller Carroll

It is the night before Thanksgiving, and the table is littered with remnants of the takeout my daughter and son-in-law picked up on their way from the airport. They have been traveling all day with a pair of four-year-olds and are showing signs of wear.

We have looked forward to this visit for over a year, but with one setback after another following my husband’s colon cancer surgery, we weren’t sure it was even going to happen. Just last week I called my daughter with every intention of canceling, but Jack came on the line and asked in a hopeful voice, “Is Grandpa Jerry feeling fine?”

Thanks to Jack’s optimism, my husband rallied. This is his first day home from the hospital, and I have been taking temps and changing bandages since 6 a.m. He was able to visit for a while, but is now tucked in bed with our old Jack Russell. I am still on my feet, but fading fast.

So when Tova says, “Let’s make cookies, Grandma Judy,” I want to make an excuse, send them to their rented townhouse, and call it a day. Instead, I scan the fridge for the ready-to-bake cookie dough I bought to tempt my husband’s appetite after his last surgery, before the radiologist discovered the abscess.

I pull out the package of dough, and Tova and I begin shaping it into balls. She has been glued to my side since they arrived. Her twin brother, Jack, who has been more interested in the cat, drags in a chair.  “What are we making?”

When I ask if he likes peanut butter cookies, he says, “Not so much,” and leans over the sink to wash his hands. It’s clear he’s done this before, probably with his other grandmother, the one who lives ten minutes away, where they have their own rooms. We are the grandparents they talk to on Skype and see once a year. The one my daughter makes sure they remember.

So though I am bone-weary, I smile as Tova rolls her ball of dough in sugar and Jack flattens his into a precise circle, thankful I can give them this memory. Thankful they are here.

And thankful to my daughter for starting this tradition of visiting us at Thanksgiving, a tradition we intend to honor for many years to come.

So How Was Your Thanksgiving? by Alarie Tennille
¬
asks nearly every neighbor, coworker, or street vendor
this time of year. I shrug it off with, Oh, the usual: turkey,
pumpkin pie, and waiting to see who will be the first one
roasted at the table. They laugh. I don’t. But sarcasm
usually buys me another year of privacy. They’d never
believe the truth.

In college, I went home with my roommate one year. First
time I’d ever heard of a children’s table. Five siblings
and cousins under age eight were seated there. I almost
pulled my chair over to join them. You’ve never eaten
at a children’s table? they asked. Only child, I explained.

Couldn’t admit I was the only child EVER in the house.
No wonder people think me odd. I learned my people
skills, from table manners to how to speak, from the
psychiatrist next door and his patient wife. They even
sent me to school, but told me I could never invite a friend
over to play. Obviously, I was just one of their subjects.
They were the researchers, hoping to learn what?

It was quite unbelievable in its way. How did they get
carnivores, foxes, raccoons, otters, snakes, and various
wild cats, to live side by side with pheasants, squirrels, and
me? Was this an experimental Eden? I never heard
or witnessed a single attack. All night long, I laid there
unprotected, my five-year-old head on a pillow beside
whatever new fur baby was brought in to stay. How
was I added to the menagerie?

Every year meant one new diner at the table and one new
taxidermied head on the wall. I began to fear that my head
might be the next trophy. Instead of asking questions,
I moved to the opposite coast, changed my name, and use
a pseudonym, too.

Last week a fan letter arrived from the mad doctor, as I think
of him now. He used my pen name, but I was still unnerved
when he said, I wish I had half your wild imagination. I think
of your stories as a macabre version of Winnie-the-Pooh
for adults.
 
First appeared on Ekphrastic Review
inspiration: art installation inspired by The Grasshopper and the Ant, and Other Stories by Jennifer Angus

 

Thanksgiving Day by Joe Cottonwood

Thanksgiving Day is
     for lizards that scuttle over logs,
     big-bellied spiders that creep in our woodpile,
     fungus that forms a dark pool of slime.
Thanksgiving Day is
     for life in every corner,
     wet cells sucking nourishment, giving birth,
     teeming through every grain of earth.

We drink water once swallowed by Jesus,
breathe atoms once blown by Buddha,
share the light of stars
     with unknown beings
     on undiscovered planets.
For this light, this water and air,
     this brotherhood
     of countless souls
we give thanks.

Kansha Sai by Laurie Kuntz

That’s Japanese for Thanksgiving,
“The festival of gratitude.”
Here I am in Japan
at the end of November
alone, giving thanks.
It was a poet that said “Alone is a stone.”
Today the stones are shimmering
under a fading fall sun
and to be alone allows the landscape of memory
to stir under this wizened sky.
My son was once afraid of the sky,
he never wanted to look up
thinking he would be swallowed.
Today, I am thankful
he has gotten over that fear.
Thankful for much on this day
when bombs are going off elsewhere.
But there are always bombs going off,
and we carry our own inner grenades
waiting to explode into a sullen sky.
Yet, I remain grateful:
For sons, for stones that shimmer,
for an ebbing autumn,
knowing that alone, I am together
with so many who are like scattered seeds
ripening into buds and waiting to bloom
in all the places I am not.

GRAVY by Barbara Crooker

To make good gravy, you must be patient,
let the juice settle to the bottom, let the fat
float to the top in all its golden light.  Skim
it with a thin spoon, take its measure.  Equal
it with flour, sprinkle with salt, speckle
with pepper.  Stir constantly in the roasting pan,
making figure eights with a wooden spoon.
Scrape off strips of skin, bits of meat; incorporate
them in the mixture, like a difficult uncle
or the lonely neighbor invited out of duty.
Keep stirring.  Hand the wooden baton
to one of your daughters; it’s time for her
to start learning this music, the bubble and
seethe as it plays the score.  One minute
at the boil, then almost like magic, it’s gravy,
a rich velvet brown.  Thin it with broth,
stir in chopped giblets, then pour into
its little boat, waiting with mouth open.
Take up your forks, slide potatoes, stuffing,
gravy, into your mouth, hum under your breath.
Oh, the holy family of gravy, all those
little odd bits and pieces, the parts that could
be discarded, but aren’t; instead, transformed
into a warm brown blanket that makes
delicious every thing it covers.

From Line Dance  

One Thanksgiving by Tamara Madison

My daughter, I know,
will not be coming
all the way from school
in New York. Then my son
says he’ll spend the day
with his girlfriend’s folks;
he can’t make
the long drive down
for our favorite holiday.

Ah, I say to myself.

They hurt you
when they enter this world;
they hurt you again
as they leave your side.

I take my solitary self in hand,
invite some lonely friends and plan.
So strange, without my daughter’s
kitchen skills, my boy’s
toasts and cheer and help.
I make the meal myself this time;
I even make the pies.
The friends arrive,
the wine is opened;
we gather around
the golden bird,
beets glistening on a bed
of garlic-studded greens,
the cranberry sauce
I always make
with marmalade
and lemon zest.

The moment I set
the last dish down,
the front door opens
and my lad walks in,
with his love on his arm.
My astonished face,
my friends will tell me later:
the embodiment of Thanksgiving.

First appeared in One Art

 

Thanksgiving With the In Laws by Sharon Waller Knutson

Dad, won’t you let me drive, my husband

says. But my 94-year-old father-in-law
waves his driver’s license in his son’s face
and wobbles on his cane to his 2006 Buick
LeSabre and sits in the driver’s seat
like a king on a throne. The Buick backs out

of the driveway and we creep
down the highway like a caterpillar
while all the cars and trucks pass us –
my husband in the front passenger
seat and my mother-in-law and me
in the back seat - pretending not to notice.

He waits at the wheel while we walk
into Wal-Mart and buy a turkey, yams,
Stovetop dressing, Jello, fruit cocktail
and cranberry sauce. His hand shakes
as he slices the turkey meat in slivers
but when his knees buckle he lets
my husband carve and carry the turkey
to the table. He laughs and smiles
as his grandkids and great grandkids
show up from Utah and Washington
and pile turkey, stuffing, mashed
potatoes soft as snow on the ground,
gravy, marshmallow roasted yams
and pumpkin pie on their plates.

He naps in his recliner as the grandkids
romp in the pasture and barn
where he sheered the sheep and helped
the ewes deliver their lambs. I can still
see him standing on the step waving
as we drive back to our homes, none
of us knowing the stroke will strike
like a tornado the next summer
and this will be our last Thanksgiving
as a family with our patriarch.

Ritz Cracker Pie by Marianne Szlyk

One Sunday afternoon in 1960 my father saved us from Aunt Moo’s mock-apple pie. Made with margarine, Realemon juice, cinnamon, sugar, and Ritz crackers, served with Cracker Barrel cheese, it wasn’t a bad pie.  It was probably a good pie.  It was even homemade.  It just wasn’t an apple pie.

Sixty-two years later, I find it hard to believe that the Victory Supermarket on North Main Street had run out of apples.  This fruit was grown all over New England before ranches, split-levels, malls, and McMansions took over.  Perhaps the pie was a trick to test my father, the young dentist with a crewcut and a convertible.  Or the pie was my aunt’s specialty, served at canasta parties and picnics by the lake, the mid-century equivalent of your kiwi cheesecake or my coffee brownies made from a mix. Or a sign that my father would be invited to the next picnic on the shores of Lake Whalom.

If Dad hadn’t discerned that the pie’s apples were really crackers fresh from the box, would Aunt Moo have brought the pie every blessed Thanksgiving throughout the Seventies?  I wince, picturing my brother and mother picking at their slices of pie while Dad and I hide ours in French vanilla ice cream from Friendly’s.  We might have had more Thanksgivings with my father’s side of the family where my aunt Irene served the mashed potatoes made with skim milk from a gigantic aluminum pot and my uncle’s girlfriend brought key lime pie and, for the younger adults, grasshopper pie.

Would I even be here if Dad had not passed the test?

First published in Setu   

Sonnet of Thanksgiving by jlewis

In giving thanks, I fear I may forget
to name some helping hand that met my want
then slipped away, escaping memory's net.
I try to bring them back, but find I can't.
And so I add into a silent prayer,
petitions for those selfless, loving folk
who without asking, when a need was there,
provided without measure. When I walk
my daily course, I feel them always near,
unseen, names lost to recollection's pull,
but never failing in their steady care
for one who often seems a simple fool.
To them I offer heartfelt gratitude.
I'd thank them each in person, if I could.