Eve Brandstein
Between Jacob and Benjamin
In the kitchen in the middle of the night
between two bedrooms
my son sleeps in one, my father in the other
while my concern moves between
his limp & his lunch
his repetitions & his why
his criticism & his acceptance
his love & his love.
These two men eighty years apart
& me in the middle
between answers still asking questions
wanting to be understood & getting told what to do
telling my son its time to go & being told I shouldn’t by my father.
In the middle of the night in the kitchen
I peel an apple
watching 4 AM traffic 21 floors below Queens Boulevard
so far away from my home in California
& my birth in Eastern Europe
the end of his story
the beginning of his
worried awake by some haunting
or something I haven’t done
being in the middle of everything
the night
the passage
the place between these two men.
I eat the apple bit by bit
without a sound the traffic slips
into the middle of summer
I hear him stir & him snore
& watch the morning amber press against the cobalt
finally feeling the sleep I need
ready for surrender
I leave the last of skin and seeds
on the table in the kitchen
between parent & child.