What We Remember

Now when my father can't even recall his wife's name,
he still remembers that salami is his favorite food,
I see us all at Rockaway Beach,
the stained paisley quilt squeezed between
rented umbrellas and striped canvas chairs,
Beach 35th Street, close to the knish and hot dog stand
even though we never bought anything,
But mostly it's the scent of salami
and fresh seeded rolls that stays,
sandwiches thrown together early on a Sunday morning
when Dad awoke to a sultry sun and declared it a beach day!
Although Mom complained that she'd nothing for lunch,
we always had a Hebrew National salami in the fridge,
At times like this, Dad would generously volunteer
to pick up rolls at the bakery,
while Mom scurried around the house
in search of the plaid, insulated beach bag
and the blue Coleman jug to be filled with Koolaid
or some other sweet concoction,
and always a bag of over-ripe peaches and plums for dessert,
And the ride home in the car, salt-water hair
pasted back by the breeze,
damp swimsuits with sand digging into skin,
unable to breath deep from the salt in our lungs,
not knowing then that the taste and smell of
salami and rolls with seeds
would outlast the memories of a fifty year marriage.

Norma Ketzis Bernstock

Both poems have won awards in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest sponsored by the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College. 

Big Bellies

All the women in my family
have big bellies,
So for as long as I can remember
I've been taught to hold myself in.
As a young girl
I wore a girdle,
It was convenient for
holding up stockings.
"That's what women do,"
my mother said.

But my mother also hid
behind closet doors to dress,
Covered herself up
when I walked into her bedroom,
Never undressed in front of my father,
and once told me that only on TV
do women like sex.

Once on an airplane I remember
an older woman
floating down the aisle
jiggling loose hips
proclaiming to anyone
who'd listen at 4:00 AM
on a flight from Tennessee to JFK
that she never confined
her body in a girdle.

I learned that the
long legged girdle
discouraged over anxious dates
on steamy nights
in parked cars.

When a favorite boyfriend
teased me mercilessly,
nicknamed me old ironsides,
When pantyhose at long last
became fashionable,
I tried to let it all hang out.

But since all the women
in my family
have big bellies,
I continue
to tighten my grip.

My body aches.

Norma Ketzis Bernstock

—July 1994

Long, dashed lines of light
framed in gray silver
slide across the land.

—February 6, 1997, rev 5/7/98

Suddenly unpent,
their summer free
to spend on sex
and rapid motion.

Ah, but then,
we’ve all been
seventeen.

—Rev 5/8/98