Under the covers

Waiting to eat

Before Thanksgiving turkey and stuffed cabbage,

Challah and rice pudding,

Yams, and peas with pearl onions,

Listening in New Brunswick to Uncle Julius’ cackles—

Rising like an angry cat above voices in the kitchen—

Clash with Doris the maid’s heavy white shoes in the hallway

And the coughing and laughing of older cousins

The clacks and bumps of the bumper pool game

Somewhere down below,

Cousin Melanie and I are expected to nap

Under Auntie Gertie’s smothering blankets

With the bedroom ceiling’s afternoon sun

Tic-tac-toe-ing through Venetian blinds.

Melanie, a pillow over her head,

Curls her knees, in the swell of the bed,

Her back to mine, beneath the feathery comforter,

Pulls her pajamas down below her thighs,

Settles, nestles against me,

Breathes in, breathes out,

and so we wait.