She’s a Double Abecedarian Wherever thou wilt touch, a bruise is found.
—H.N. Bialik (1873-1934)

Auntie D’s chemistry went awry at some point, her brain biz
      zigzagging like the rust in her toilet. No amnesia—
brisket and borscht always on the table of the dizzy
      yenta’s apartment. She yelped over a sour cream dab,
canasta hand, crumbling matzoh ball. A to-the-max
      xenophobe, kvetching was her cric-crac, ad hoc
deal. A dead-bolt of a woman who bled and salted chickens, who saw
      woe-is-me in every full cup. She wore eau de wormwood.
Enemy of Onondaga spirits, she labeled me a Kiev
      variant of another Tribe, blamed me for the intermarriage
fad in the family, said that men were my froufrou.
      Understudy for Attila, her voice boomed long before she went deaf.
Grating on nerves, she shredded intimacy wherever she went.
      Trotsky couldn’t have imagined a worse politic, nor Strindberg
have scripted such a drame. Herring and black bread in satchels,
      she stooped in steerage to Brooklyn with Grandma Hannah
in the year 1905. Maybe she became an agent provocateur
      right there at the water’s edge in NY: a Jewish Cathy de’ Medici
jostling the Fates. She said yes to no man, though her hand was a FAQ.
      Quite a wonder, wasn’t it? She lost a lung, but still the Raj
kept emitting enough air for a last minute pogrom. Extra zip
      poured out when her youngest brother died. A dark
love it was between them. She never worked; he, her sugar daddy-o
      of over 60 years. When he passed, was she merciful?
More money was what she craved, so she sued me and a cousin.
      Nothing blocked her pursuit of a bigger share of wampum.
No one could believe how a 100-year-old could brew such venom.
      Malediction it was, for my father, my cousin’s father & seven
other dead siblings—their colons, uteruses, kidneys gone AWOL—
      languishing in upstate NY plots, the Kaddish spread over tombs like oleo.
Prayers won’t wake them; they’ll never eat blintzes or latkes or drink
      Kahlúa or Sanka again. Blessed be their eternal sleep.
Quite another story for Auntie D. No nostalgia trip. No Hadj
      journey toward redemption for this coq [à la]
rage. I should have guessed from her letters. The ruin of Pompeii
      is prosaic by comparison. Always an abattoir,
she stripped off old skin for the new year, took new oaths, new wrath,
      had me iron baby doll pajamas, and father’s Hathaways,
too, with my left hand. Then her letters with words from the gulag,
      groaning and moaning words like wraiths dying to rest
under the spell of their undertaker. Her dreams were stuck in romans à clef,
      floundering, plucked one by one like a decaying Xanadu.
Vying for her approval, her love, I tried to get close,
      edging toward her river, but always rebuked, always the ganev.
Wherever thou will touch a bruise is found. Their flesh is wholly sore. Did
      Daddy know how she must have struggled, and still right now
excelling as victim? Her letters reflect the paranoiac havoc—
      chaos of a century of denial. She writes a jinx:
“Your birthday roses and chocolates mean nothing.” It’s the usual jab:
      “By the way, I know you won’t be coming to my . . .”
Zoom in on the photograph of her as a young girl smiling by the sea,
      as if life would be the ripple of her blond curls . . . and a gee-whiz.