“Manger” by Michael Alleman

“Mange. Mange,” Maw-Maw murmured
as I scooped sausage out of the bowlful of gumbo,
her irritation twitching in her gestures.
A long bowl it was, long-savored, in part,
to twitch her as she stood with dripping washrag,
waiting to wipe the table. I took the word
away—“mange”—“manger” its infinitive I learned
years later in Dr. Zaumbracher’s class—
“to eat.”
            Her final Christmas, we fed her
blackbird gumbo, until she choked and her heart
twitched with a last agitation.

Sometimes—when standing at the stove, alone,
stirring roux and feeling, suddenly, the touch
of unseen vision like a sunbeam on my back,
or hearing in the shifting wind the lisping
of distant syllables—sometimes, I wonder
if the old ones have fooled us with names
and dates in stone; if grandmeres and grandperes,
noncs and tantes are not audience to our lives.
Are we things of precious pity to them
like a porcelain infant laid upon straw
among cattle, waiting in the silence
of our innocence for the world to eat?

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