Covenant

The oldest sister, her two hands on the table,

about to push herself up, stares with grim

determination at the affronting dishes,

waiting, it seems, until the middle sister

finishes her story, so she can clear them away.

Her gaze so tense with purpose she can almost

see germs spawning in the mess of white fish

flaking from the spines, the smear of egg yolk

and the torn rolls disfiguring the china;

as if the meal, the moment it is over,

the meal she made a point of telling them

she shopped for, got up early to prepare,

were now inedible, because uneaten.

It’s no great comfort either that her brother

sitting opposite holds up a flared match

over the pipe from which smoke rolls away

across the table like a phantom mold

in and around the open tub of butter,

the gouged block of cream cheese and the coffee cups;

so in a moment when she finally does stand

she’ll say again, as always, For love or money

in my mouth I’d never put such filth,

and he’ll say, winking at the middle sister,

That’s what she said on her honeymoon.

The youngest sister is sitting on the couch

behind the table; her face—sheer disengagement,

toneless and still—appears to hang suspended

beyond the oldest sister’s shoulder, far

enough away for no one yet to notice

as her legs cross that the ashtray in her lap

spills ash over the sunflowers of her housedress.

Or that the cigarette between her fingers

sags loosely and is dangling while the hand

lifts like a puppet’s on a string of smoke.

Her death is just three months away.

Even though it’s summer (otherwise

the brother and middle sister would be home,

in Florida), summer and late morning—

with sunlight only just now catching on

a corner of the window shut behind them,

shut against the smog, the steady traffic

and the panicked blare and drawn-out whining fade

of sirens—the apartment is still quiet,

still cool enough, right now, to keep the body

in the wavering frail zone of what it needs

to be forgotten, so they can sit like this

together, with the oldest sister’s sharp eye

on the wrecked meal, the brother and sister talking:

Listen, she would be saying, listen, Charlie,

her elbows on the table, both hands open,

the body fashioned to the voice’s weary

What can you do? What are ya gonna do?

in answer to some story of a cousin’s

sudden illness (And he was my age, just

like that one day he’s shaving with the toothpaste),

or a friend’s death (That one, she didn’t care

how sick she got, she always had her hair done),

his back pain, her arthritis, or the daughter

who won’t diet (And she’d be such a beauty!);

after his joke about the nurse, and hers

about the bedpan, Listen, they each say,

Listen, what are ya gonna do?

“The Schmo,

he never should’ve married her, for Christ sake,

until he told her that he had a problem,

that was his first mistake, then he goes

throwing away his pills, because he’s happy

he doesn’t need them anymore, the schmo,

so of course what happens is she wakes up

and finds him weeping at the kitchen table,

just weeping, he doesn’t know why, he won’t eat,

won’t get dressed, says he’s quittin’ his job,

you know, nuts, nuts, so naturally she leaves him,

the poor schmo, and he’s such a good boy . . . ”

All of the harm that’s imperceptibly

but surely coming for them (the way the sun

burns brick by brick all morning toward the window

like a slow fuse)—all of the bad news now

is in the body only enough to hold

the middle sister’s two hands open, shrug

her shoulders in a way they recognize

as hers, the way their mother did; as if

all trouble were, for now, no heavier

than the familiar voice repeating, Listen,

Listen it could be worse; So who’s to say?;

What was, was; When your number’s up—like old charms

woven around each story till they’ve made

what happens what was only meant to happen,

coherent with fate, fated as family.

After the funeral three months from now,

they’ll have to listen to the oldest sister

tell them they had no business moving away

to Florida, and Irene sick as she was.

And selfish. She was selfish, that one. After

all those years of living with that bum,

her husband, may his cheap soul rest in peace,

didn’t she deserve a little pleasure?

And anyway, what could be done for her?

Didn’t the stroke just make it easier

for her to sit all day, and smoke, and not care

ashes were falling on the couch, the carpet;

her bathrobe filthy, filthy? Oh it was terrible—

and now they will hear the old unfairnesses,

old feuds and resentments come to her voice

like consolation, like a mother helping

her recite the story of that last bad day—

all that smoke, and running in with nothing

but the dishtowel to beat down the flames,

and Irene, just Irene, just sitting there,

the queen of Sheba—What difference did it make

since she was there, she was always there,

her big sister, to clean up the mess?

Only three months, and yet it could be years,

or decades, for the sun has only just now

caught in the window, and its bright plaque warms

the air so gradually that none of them

can know it’s warming, or that soon someone,

distracted by a faint sheen prickling the skin,

will break the story, look up toward the window

and, startled by the full glare, check the time.

Right now, though, the future is a luxury

of instances in which the cigarette,

raised halfway to the lips, will go on rising.

Nothing bad, right now, can happen here

except as news, bad news the brother and sister

mull and rehearse, puzzle and fret until

it seems the very telling of it is

what keeps them safe. And safe, too, the oldest sister,

dreaming of all the perishables sealed,

wrapped up and hurried back into the fridge’s

uncontaminated airlessness,

dreaming of how the soapsuds curdle and slide

over the dishes in a soothing fury,

not minding that it scalds her hands to hold

each plate and cup and bowl under the hot,

hard jet of water, if it gets them clean.

Source: Covenant (The University of Chicago Press, 1991)

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