Celestial Rolodex, by Fran Markover

A is for Albie, beloved uncle, fighter pilot, who made model airplanes at Horizon Village. His last words to me as he lay dying were “I’ve still got all my marbles, kid!” At his burial, my cousins played Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon.”

B is for Barbara, mother-in-law, her favorite expression: “I’ll be darned” to most anything we said. She loved her hummingbirds, hummers who alit on her trumpet vines. “I’ll be darned,” she’d cackle to them.

C is for Carl, my father, who I miss so dearly. Dad, whose harmonica I found in a velvet-lined box shaped like a casket. “Chattanooga Choo Choo, Woo, Woo.” Somewhere over the rainbow he’s chugging out a song. His finale ─ “Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling.”

D is for Deborah, classmate at Ellenville Central, who gave me a 16th birthday party at her home. I can picture the gift she gave ─ my favorite sweater, the one I saw on the cover of Seventeen magazine, pink mohair with yellow knit dots.

E is for Elizabeth, 2nd mother, who adopted me in college. She’d sit patiently in her rocker, wrapped in a homemade afghan, listen to my misadventures with boyfriends. She sheltered me after my surgery. Years later, when her husband George was so ill, she called and said, “please come over, Fran. I need children.”

F is for Feigele. I’m named after her, my grandfather Morris’ mother. She remained in her home in the 1920s. “They’d never harm an old lady,” she told Grandpa in her Ukrainian doorway. Feigele. It means “little bird.” I’m so sad she never took flight.

G is for Gerry, our friend, poet, who loved to take walks in the woods. Who knew all there was to know of white-tailed deer. He had a booming voice. Cancer took that away. To this day I can hear Pastor Jack at the funeral say, “Sometimes we’re dealt a bad hand of cards. Gerry played his the hardest. Gave it his best.”

H is for cousin Harry, a man I never met. He was the first relative in America, early 1900s. Harry was a tailor from a line of tailors and seamstresses. I can imagine him in a tenement, early Brooklyn, cutting away with his big scissors. They’re now in a place of honor in Tante Ruchel’s hutch.

I is for Izzie, another tailor from the old country. His shop was down the block from our house,
Izzie was the shortest man I knew, also the most ornery, the most gruff. When I brought my prom dress to him he questioned me as if he were part of the Spanish Inquisition. His last name was Needleman.

J is for Uncle Jack, my father’s brother. He was a Navy man during WWII. Jack gave me a grass skirt from Hawaii and I’d dance bare-breasted around our poultry farm, wildflowers in my pigtails. At five years old, I didn’t think he’d never speak to us again, how heart-broken my father was for the rest of his life.

K is for Mr. Kesselman, superb Social Studies teacher in high school. I remember him not so much for lessons on world events but for the handsome blond boy who sat opposite me, Peter, my first crush. Oh, yes, there’s one lesson Mr. K. taught that I recall: “jaw, jaw is better than war, war.”

L is for Laurie, expert musician and my meditation instructor who taught me to breathe in 2, breathe out 4. She planted flowers in every nook and cranny in her neighborhood. They have bloomed long after her death. I picture her in a celestial spaceship playing a flute cantata, seeding posies like stars dotting the universe.

M is for my brother Michael who passed 5 years ago at 56 years old. Severely autistic, he lived in a group home for adults. I think of him daily and with every piece of writing, with every poem, I try to channel his voice, to say words he never got to express. Rest well, Michael.

N is for Nick, my husband’s client, who remained a friend to us. Nick, developmentally disabled,
beaten as a boy, still so angry as he grew up. We loved him, became family. When he was found deceased on January 2nd, the coldest night of the year, we felt the ice in our hearts when the cops came to our door with news of his passing. Every month, we place a stone on his grave.

O is for Olga, my aunt. I wear lipstick in her honor ─ Passion Fruit #308. She began each phone call: “Hello, Bubbalah. How are you, delicious girl?” I miss her orange puffy hair that reminded me of cotton candy, miss her muumuus and gold lamé sandals. If love were a color, it would be bright orange.

P is for Papa, my mother’s father, Morris. He’d greet me ─ “Francinooski, eat something, skinny girl.” When he escaped from Vinnetska, he carried his mandolin as he rowed across the river Dnestr. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I hear his Russian folk tunes strumming after seders.

Q is for Leo Q., my cousin. I only saw him on Passover. His cigar formed circles each time he’d catch the little ones giggling at Hebrew or sneaking matzoh under the table, breaking the unleavened bread into tiny pieces so that the floor felt like a beach.

R is for R.C., poet and sailor. I saw him 2 times a year at workshops held at Amazing Grace. He once pinned a buttercup into the button hole of my sweater and whispered how poetry was “necessary.”

S is for Slapsie Maxie, my father’s distant cousin. He was welter weight champ in the ’30s and a Grade B movie star. I know him through his films like I Married A Monster from Outer Space. On bad days, I imagine him yelling: “Don’t take no crap from no one.”

T is for Tante Ruchel. She worked in a millinery. Her hair was the color of parchment. Ruchel earned her high school diploma at the age of 80. Every time I wear a sunhat, I picture her sewing ostrich feathers, or polka dot netting, or velvet trim around the edges so I could be a proper lady.

U is for Ursula, my father’s mother, who left my grandfather when dad and his brother were young boys. I never met her. She headed to Ohio with her lover, abandoning her children. Ursula was a hand model. Did she ever think of her grandkids? My father? I believe she’d disapprove of my fingers, garden dirt under my nails, uneven crescents.

V is for Uncle Vinny, mother’s brother. No one liked him. He was a gambler, snarled a lot. Once, he met Cousin Eileen at the door with a shotgun. After his funeral, I discovered he was an Elvis wannabe in a band called the Four Roses. He once loved a woman named Rose but felt he couldn’t marry her because she wasn’t Jewish.

W is for Ed Wuppersahl, dad’s friend. Both worked as prison guards. Long after Ed died, I found a newspaper blurb about his life. He was a member of the Klan. Father never knew this. I think of Ed and his wife at our dining room table, joking, eating ice cream in front of our menorah.

Y is for Yitzak. He was Grandma’s brother. He lived in her attic and came downstairs for dinner. Yitzak was toothless. He loved sardines. He spent time mumbling in prayer. I was fascinated by his tallith that hid him like a fringed curtain. I was certain that if there was a God, he’d look like Yitzak, tired, very wrinkled, robed all in white, looking out from above.

Z is for Zeke, short for Ezekial the cat, supreme outdoor adventurer. He originally belonged to in-laws. We had promised we’d look after him when my in-laws died. Zeke had other plans, and ran away. The last time I saw him, he was resting against my mother-in-law’s feet like some furry Egyptian deity, as she lay dying. “Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones…” I hope, Zeke, that you are still dreaming of heavenly mice scampering across some Elysian fields. 

School Daze, by Rob Sullivan

white shirt immaculate,
conception of knotted tie
still room for improvement
older brother's aid invaluable

trousers had the crease
black shoes had the shine
face and hands- the sheen
heart and spirit- the genuflect

make no mistake
to be of value and use
all we colts
needed to be broken,
brought low
quitted down
and tamed

every manner of half-truth
and subversive lie
was to be weeded
from the garden-primeval

catechism, church doctrine,
daily prayer ,weekly mass and confession
all designed to bring
wayward young souls
back
back into the fold
back into the arms of the one true god

how we wanted to be saved
how we yearned for love
and acceptance
into the good
boys and girls club

save for the fallen angels
who would not bow down
or cower in fear
of ruler and switch
across knuckles or bottom

these prideful angels
found themselves
thankfully banished
to the most public
of schools -- forever

each of us who stayed
fought the good fight
to be saints
in a fallen world
to be imitations of Christ
to be of and not of
this world

to be good
to be small
to be quiet
to be humble
to be servants
to be docile
to be less
to be no trouble
to be obediant
to be afraid