by Joshua Cohen
To leave His home is to leave a boy behind, what He once was in a house handmedowned. The shroud of rooms and the embalming windings of the halls to be borne now, forever, upon another body…the new baby in its blush and chub, the newest affection, at her age, Hanna’s, an affectation with fists the size of tears, never to come swiftly crawling toddling walking a raw knee felled down the stairs then straight into the hallwayed arms of its mother, who once was His, had been—love for Ben cooling like Saturday’s soup, which is cholent sopped with the crusts of stale bread still bagged, storebought, which, too, had been the challah of Friday, the errant second loaf. Promise only vouches you so far, so distant, until old, unemotional, and moldy with mind: to grow up awkward and isolated, pimpled and alone, made witness to the probable stuff of youth, the toy guns and knives and other playthings never had, never allowed as inappropriate, unsafe, the tricycles and bicycles coming around in cycles, balls and blocks of wood and plastic and of plastic like wood with alphabets, presumptive—revived in the life of another, the objects themselves scuffed and dulled to dead now newly shined, once given son and so suddenly appealing again, attractive, put to fresh uses, fun He’d never imagined could be had, they could’ve had together: Os of wholesome cereal strung on the strands of His mother’s hair bewigged and dyed above but below as dark as milk, across the room living, family, or den, stuffedanimals strangled in the ties of His father arranged around the brunch table, perched atop chairs to referendum on the issues of the day, the fate of the family, punishments for Rubina’s pubescent misery…miniature houses of leaves and twigs and moss and nests assembled in the driveway, to be brought to collapse when Israel pulls out the Merc the next morning so early it’s almost still night, for work; he’s always working—the Israelien house left vacant, abandoned to what could’ve been. To be made Present Resident of the last house on Easy Street, taking into Manhattan the gravied train, the commuter’s heartquick circulation. Ben never to darken His own doorway again, to be humiliated a fumble at its lock, with the day’s close its shadow drafting reductive, immature. Feed for Him the fish we flushed long ago; water the houseplants, the weeping ferns of Babylon-by-the-bay. Do me a favor, and silence. An intercom hiss, the fuzzed tongue of the stairs. To sleep atop the sheets of His conception, with sisters He calls His own…
Across the Island He sits in the Registry, on a suitcase His father had once bought in Miami at the aeroport as extra luggage for the souvenirs he’d bring them home, anything he’d buy on impulse come his boarding: the blizzards of snoglobe, postcards never to send, that poseable pink flamingo. Here mourning the hold defiled, laid to waste in the process of such heldover His head nightly grief—which is talking, dining, praying in necessity’s urgent order, the priorities of the overscheduled martyr: slipcovers as if they’re flayed scholar-skin hanging from the arms of the sofas set with recliner matching, stuffing-spilled pillows slipped irretrievably into cracks behind couches against the paperpeeling walls, the chairs upended, unseated, the upstairs beds and even Wanda’s tousled by guests too drunk and Amenfed to have made it home alone, their smokes smote atop the carpet and, also, as black clouds upon the ceiling, the arms of the overhead fan broken, the emptied glasses smashed, plates pooled in a bronze sea of oil crossed by Shiva’s knives—bloodblunted, gristly, twisted in hands shook poorer of their nerve; protective plasticwrap smoothed and saved for nothing, foiled, with the drawers hanging open; to what would’ve been Hanna’s horror, no one’s bothered to cleanup.
Enough.
O, if only His parents would have died! It would have been enough.
If only His parents and His sisters would have died, it would have been enough.
If only His parents and His sisters and His PopPop would have died, it would have been enough.
If only His parents and His sisters and His PopPop and then all of Them, except the firstborn, would have died, it would have been enough.
If only His parents and His sisters and His PopPop then all of Them, save the firstborns, and then even Them, and then even the saved firstborns they die, dayeinu, Gottenyu, it would have been enough…to say, this’ll probably futz you scarred for life, what did Israel call Him, boychick, and then would say along with Hanna, this hurts us more than it hurts—nu, you’re thanked then praised, almightily. And not just that and living and unharmed, which are as lentils flung to the spring’s harsh wind, the lost half of the afikomen sharded small in the light of His parents and people dead, it’s that He’s safer now than ever, emerged bathed clean, roofslept, and with His fortune secured, the return’s reward, the birthright collecting interest…enough to say, stop that kvetch, but me no buts, I’ve had enough of all your whine. This geshray and bitch bemoan. That nothing’s enough. Nothing’s good enough for you. An only son, how He’s an only Messiah, too, and whether false or not no matter as so far unopposed—hymn, He’s thinking, and that’s supposed to be a pass, a snowday, a Florida vacation taken off from the mind and its daily duty. What an overprivileged pisher. Taking each breath for granted curse. You’re never satisfied. Impossible to please. But this, it’s not His fault He was faulted this way. Brought up to expect so much more of Himself that He rages that better others fail. Responsible, that’s how He’s raised, that’s how He would’ve been at least then college, career, a wife with kinder of their love, themselves to be bathed clean, roofed, and sleeping rich in a house of their own that didn’t have to be recreated as consciously as here, as He would’ve bought that way, they would’ve. Nextdoor with weekly suppers simple. And then adjacent plots with matching stones, opposite His parents, her having taken the Israelien name, the veil of His mother that is the oven’s hood. Graves visited monthly and wellmaintained, we’re talking. Again, remembered with a rock.
As the prophets always say, He’s not getting off that easy…
Above the Hall’s portico, Ben stands facing the islands offIsland, the city to come, over the railing reclining into weather. In the freeze, a squint of reflected moon. Out there, it’s quiet, corpsed in hush: all five boroughs and the sixth of the ice pierced with regret, with even Joysey in mourning, from the beaches up through the pines and the smokestacked clouds; businesses have been shuttered; minds have been closed; churches lie smoldering, rubble neglecting even to fall…Manhattan, a cincture of cinder. Shiva, once its success has been proven over an extended engagement at the Israelien household, is taken national, then worldwide, spends itself from hurst to wood to burg, to glen to city, yadda, each discharging its public rites, the performance of municipal ablution with media assured; solidarity, shtum. All ends on a Sunday, the day of the rising, of Hosanna and olden unction…the Sunday of palms holding its day weeks prior to Easter, which’s been forgotten, too, as if a gust’s direction, its windy directive, Easter, go Easter and Easter—weeks more waxed a wane down through their days, inked through the boxes of the calendar, ticked off nick by prick upon the face of the stovetop, its timer and that of the microwave deprogrammed and unplugged, to what once had been that fake or falsest of days if with true intention, marketed for the honoring of Mothers. O Hanna, He’s forgotten your Hallmark, your slippers over the rugs soft and sinking, your heels on the hardwood tapping impatience, anger, displeasure with yourself the punishment of rage—the weight of your approach, the force of your presence, your warm and sucky flesh; knows only the posthumous linger, the cold breath of your skirts and your blouses in the closet once mirrored in Him, that smell of perfume #5 you’d shpritz to your wrist; how the sweetened flowers—last year’s irises—would’ve been delivered with a card signed with Israel’s name to wilt then die in a vase in a hall, now shattered, glued, reglued, and then shattered again; Wanda would’ve made sure, Wanda who never forgets, marks the boxes on her own calendar a recreation of the one hanging from a loosened tack upstairs at the wall scuffed by the slammed opening of the frontdoor, the archivists and the historical maids, such experts; watches the clock an eye for an eye, watches her watch, which was a gift given to her by Israel an
d Hanna for a holiday she didn’t observe; on break, how she reminds Israel an entire Friday before; gives him a second call at the office, notice ample like breasts, following up urgently with his secretary, a final warning, get her a gift, who, your wife, whoever you might’ve married While You Were Out, as it’s dated, timed, a slipping pink, a scribble; Loreta running off a form, a replicate, yet another rejectable settlement in triplicate, and demanded ASAP, puts her on hold while she waits for the feed, then through to his extension, his voice; Hello, you’ve reached Israel Israelien, I’m not able to take your call, but if you would please—leaves a message, hangs up.
Inroit an end. The calendar leaves wilting to blotches of ink, blatt blowing off and away on a wind from the west; the hands of the clocking watch on the wrist slowing to stasis, clasping each other at dawn and dusk, then at every other time between—the freezing of the tide and its moon of one face, turnedcheek lune with its modest blush; opposite the sun, resting its house-warming, retiring to the reflection of Miami behind the clouds to putter about at an altitude no sky could ever scrape, highrisen amid the greatest lot ever vacant. Though it’s been worthless since day one, which was day never, obsolete since forever, time is presently asserting its purpose, its fundamental truth: as a nothingness, against which to measure death. A height marked short at the doorjamb, hinges tall and growing. Noon is lunch. Dinner means six. Linner and dunch indulging between. Hunched, tired, icesalted. Sandy Hook hikes its pants over the waist of the state. Newark exhales. Bereaved, bereft, weakened. Were it another time, if one could exist, if there might be two species of nothingness and those both existing concurrently, the city might invite this: lying elder and willow at the foot of the ass kicked through the gates, which are located, it’s said, on both sides of the Tunnel. As for its rider, it’s been said He’d preach, too: withholding, limitation…no new taxes, He’d promise, better health care and schools for our kinder—before ascending, then forgetting everything, every promise, every preachment unpracticed and then everyone, as well, that’d ever helped Him, who got Him where and who he is, today—to the Temple. Then trashing it as badly as His house shall require our cleaning. Tzedakah’s always welcome, then with admission you are, too—reservations not required; how the people don’t even need to be reminded anymore, informed as to what they’re ignoring, what they’ve forgotten, what’s forsaken, no—more like what or Who they’re supposed to be venerating next. A given up given over, a negative lent. An altar stood on its head.
Palm Sunday proves a lesser passing: in silence, without ceremony, host to no circumstance; lashes stay in without pomp or parade; the people dressed down sit at their tables and cry; station to station it’s static, the mating call of snow…empty avenues and streets, the underground tunnels of the trains stilled in rust; Staten Island stranded in a lawn of ice, which is fenced in by concrete, which is cemented to earth that’s ungated; Midtown a block abandoned even by shadows; no one’s seen: eyes cast out like stones at their feet they can’t even see each other, or won’t; no sound’s heard beyond the weather: their ears have become cold, and listen only within; how they’re all inside, they’re interiorized, palms in their palms not knowing what to do: discussing, debating, planning for which to prepare. Ben remains inside the Registry to which His room’s been transferred, its furniture, His filthy heap entire: the bed, the chest of drawers intact and rumpled with the lamp atop unlit. He yawns. Idle hands, idler palms. He undoes His robe, extracts. Verily, at the gates of His loneliness, which are His legs, His thighs with their hindquarters lamed, by an angel named I’m curious, as if to prevent escape, postpone His flee, Him lazily limping—He lays down His loads, unburdens Himself of skin. Upon this Sunday, which is the outdated, outmoded Sabbath, He lashes Himself with His palms. Fast then slow and shvitzy. A Garden without a tree to damn Him whether with shade or fruit, He’ll seed Himself alone. As if to mark the stations of an inheritance unshed.
0800: left sock, held damp in His mouth,
0848: right sock, a different pair and still in bed,
1102: left sock, again, but this once turned insideout,
1333: on the Registry’s wall, half upon a portrait of Himself unframed,
1400: in the Registry again, all over the tiled floor, over the railing of the balcony to sully the remainder of His image,
1407: into His scapular, known as tzitzit, whose quartered fringes will become bound together, drying hard, into one knot who could worry free,
1454: and then smeared with thumb into His mother’s robe’s low hem—fisted quickly, but ruminantingly rubbed—which will cleave to His tzitzit still worn below and wet,
And what did these socks look like? asks Doctor Tweiss, though he’s staring at them preserved for exhibit in plastic.
One was black, the other blue; I’d slip them over my…myself; then stroke the sock proper, like so.
As if a second foreskin, the other doctor says, an auxilary prepuce, if you will…
Though only a suggestion, He feels He’s contractually bound to nod—the gesture of His hand.
1502: now…begun in a waitingroom, then continued in the next, finished here in this office, underneath the gowned covers atop the analysand’s couch, with His feet up in stirrups and a blush choking at His neck.
To sprout from these seeds: all a question of interpretion, a matter of blemish, a blot on the mind…a whole host of Hims in motile miniature: hurtling spermatozoa, with their own yarmulkes, grown spiraling payos already and curly beards that snare them into stains.
What seems to be the problem? asks which doctor, is the problem. Adolescence. Anything I can do about it?
I can pay today in cash.
1628: in the front seat of the limousine,
1748: and then again in the limo’s rear as He’s returning,
1856: in the widest hallway of the Great Hall on the way to do this in the toilet,
2035: then, while breaking bread in the Commissary enormous and alone, Him indulging singlehandedly,
2205: and then again between the pages of His only evening prayerbook, Arvit it’s called while faking its devotion,
2337: into His own yarmulke, finally it’s late, and thankfully white, which He replaces atop His head then, to sleep another day…
And for all these sins and for many more, O so many more of them unto sheer unaccountability—for these sins unto even the omissions therein, and then for all of their sins obtaining, too, You should forgive Him, Thou shalt, O so pleased with yourself, do us all a favor, will you, please…forgive.
Forgive Him for His
Apathy.
Forgive Him for His
B .
Forgive Him His
C .
Forgive Him His
D .
Forgive Him for His
E .
Forgive Him His
F .
Forgive Him for His
G .
Forgive Him for His
H .
Forgive Him His
I .
Forgive Him His
J .
His Jealousies, say…as petty as they are—as he had excellent shower-slippers, which won’t fit, and then neither will his hat: Steinstein’s personals stacked to the side, under the desk made a tiny pile, cinched with a snippet of his belt…
And TEN (10) is the number of the toes on His feet. And NINE is the number of the pimples on His knees. And EIGHT is the number of the wens on His thighs.
Forgive Him His
Ken, kenosis, keptstatus…
Forgive Him for His
Laxity, laziness…lists.
Forgive Him for His
Machinations…
And SEVEN is the number of the foreskins He’s shed today alone. And SIX is the number of the hairs encircling His navel. And FIVE is the number of the hairs encircling each one of His nipples.
Forgive him O Lord of Hosts,
Thou Horde of Losts our forgiver forever…
Forgive Hi
m for His Necrophilia, though latent—practiced exclusively with incarnations of His sisters, and His mother, which only occasionally, when and if He asks them to, fool Him.
Forgive Him His
Onanism.
Forgive Him His
Persnicketyness…as to which
pleasure’s which.
And FOUR is the number of the whiteheads on His neck. And THREE is the number of the blackheads on His nose. And TWO is the number of the ulcers in His eyes.
Forgive Him His
Q .
Forgive Him His
R .