Blood Soup

The last time I saw father alive he was using

a black umbrella, closed, to beat off some pigeons

hanging outside the marble portals of a museum.

We were visitors, walking very slowly, so father

could stoop and examine everything. We had not been

in the museum, but were resting on its steps.

We saw it all—the fountains, the statues, the parks

and the post office. Cities are made of such things.

Once we encountered a wedding coming out of the cathedral

and were caught in a shower of rice; as the bride

flicked her veiled head father licked his little finger

and in this way saved a grain. On the next block

he announced he was going to heaven. But first let’s

go back to the hotel and rest, he said: I want my mint.

Those were practically his last words. And what did I want

more than anything in the world? Probably the ancient Polish

recipe for blood soup, which was finally told to me

in an empty deli in a deserted mill town in western Massachusetts

by the owner’s mother, who was alone one day when I burst

in and demanded a bowl. But, she said, lacing her fingers

around a jar of morello cherries, it requires one cup of

new blood drawn from the goose whose neck you’ve just wrung

to put in the pot, and where in these days can I find

anything as fresh as that? I had lost track of my life

before, but nothing prepared me for the onslaught of

wayfarer’s bliss when she continued to list, one

by one, the impossible ingredients I needed to live.

We sat at the greasy table far into the night, while

snow fell on the locked doors of the church next door,

dedicated to St. Stanislas, which was rumored to be

beautiful inside, and contain the remains of his beloved head.

Source: Among the Musk OX People: Poems (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2002)