A Marriage

My Grandfather Louis was a butcher.
Meat was his medium.
My Grandmother Esther was religious.
She would not eat unkosher meat,
or have him, either.
She kept it up a year,
sea-salt crystals leaching blood
from tough, kosher steaks in the sink.
Days, her bible sat open to Numbers.
Nights, his spotted apron hung on the door.
Evenings he brought home tenderloin, triangle,
ribeye, eye of round, T-bone, flank, skirt,
chuck, brisket, tongue, oxtail for soup
and yellow marrow, quivering.
She would not eat,
or touch it,
or touch him, either.
That was her way,
the way of the Law.
All day he trimmed the fat,
kept his finger off the scales,
cut up the best Texas beef
shipped live from Chicago,
dull eyes closed
below his hammer,
skinner’s knife
slipped between the hides.
All night he thought of ways
and words to break her,
until he weighed
what she brought home,
exposed the Shochet, "a cheat."
They ate lobster, Alaskan
crab, prawns, catfish,
spareribs, pig’s feet, bacon, rabbit,
and Florida shark steaks, quivering.
My Grandfather was a butcher,
meat was his medium
until he bought a store.
One day he boxed his apron
and shelved it in the closet.
One day she closed her bible
on his cleaver, marked her ending place.

"A Marriage" Appeared in TriQuarterly #89, and was reprinted in TriQuarterly New Writersfrom TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, 1996. It is available from Amazon.com.