. Appetizers The way my in-laws cook makes me want my mother, to whom I speak only at funerals and weddings my tongue stiff as a cortege. Married, I inhabit a new garden rented with what I’ve salvaged of tenderness, but I cherish the first expulsion, the memory of that one bite my only inheritance. Married, it’s become clear: I haven’t evaded anything. Love is still bought with obligation. The only difference is some families serve artisanal pasta and some serve Chef Boyardee. II. Entrée Can love be measured by effort of food preparation? There is no way to thank my mother for waking early before work to create tomato sauce from scratch because I haven’t been able to abide the sight of her since 1975. Still, my fingers twitch to dial that woman who can fry a meatball that leaves grown men speechless with desire and delight. It’s like that reluctant patriotism I feel when traveling. At the table of this new family where the food’s apologizing for being dead on arrival without a hope of resurrection there is still a mother locked onto her children like a jealous god. III. Dessert As always, I curl around my serpent self deaf and dumb vibrations on my forked tongue bad muscle that serves my husband ecstasy and despair and knowledge in equal portions. By dessert my napkin is wet with penitent tears. I’m sorry, Rod, to make you choose between pleasure and Eden. I’m sorry, Schmidts forgive your daughter-in-law starving, and so unable to dwindle into a good fit for this family with her large wants barging in elbows akimbo on the table knife and fork upraised in each fist, banging. I’m sorry, mom. Your presence is unbearable but I miss your lasagna conveying all I won’t allow you to say in rapturous hosannahs.

I played the wicked witch of the west in Wizard of Oz, In 8th grade, at Applegarth Junior High. Typecasting, Everyone said, because I scowled in class pictures, Because I had screaming bouts with my parents Because I ate so little that my nose and chin grew sharp, My fingers like twigs, my breath sour. A witch, they called me. When I appeared onstage, green face, cone hat, Pointy shoes, striped socks, black cape, A baby in the first row began to bawl. I was enthralled With the ability to wreak fear on others. I discovered That power is its own gender. I was not just a skinny girl With big boobs, who looked like a broomstick with tits. I was what whispered amid the garments in a dark closet. Not once had I wanted to be Dorothy with that awful getup-- Who wears sequined shoes with a gingham jumper? I wanted to wear black garters and make boys suffer. I wanted to sneak out at night, drink rum and coke and Smoke cigarettes and wear too-red lipstick on my potty mouth. I wanted to be left alone, to read Tarot cards, make juju bags Bursting with herbs and rose quartz and melted wax. I wanted To dance naked and chant in the woods the names of snake goddesses I wanted to eat honey and apples and peanut butter I wanted to love My body ripe and round I wanted to bang drums and spread my limbs and Draw down the moon, paint runes on stones, conjure my blood?s river and Be what curls red in the night, be what blooms behind your eyes When you close them in the bright sun, I wanted to be a witch and Thank the goddess a witch, a stregha, is what I am.

I. The moon is new and invisible At 3:00 PM and the candy dish Is never empty and never full And in my office we cannot blink, Zombies in the throes of sugar rage. II. At 3:00 AM, the husband glassy-eyed And drooling, joystick in hand. On the TV screen, his character Shoots zombies like skeet. III. Seeing Evil Dead in the movie theater I was fourteen and he was eighteen He sucked my neck & never left a bruise I dreamed through high school of our White picket house with a pet zombie in the yard. IV. The zombies tumbling out of graves Like animated jewels, jade green or Blue & mottled with white, like agates. V. In The Serpent and The Rainbow, The recipe for Haitian zombie poison. I will go to a rain forest, catch a toxic frog, Stick it in a jar, anger it so it secretes venom, Make some zombie poison. VI. Against the odds, the zombies congregating Outside my window at night; troubadours, all, Songs in their throats like the gargling of stones They offer me their hands, Which drop to the ground like rotted fruit. VII. New Jersey childhood Playing near landfills The zombies lounging around The neighborhood lake like algae, Their bright smiles mossy. VIII. From the raised manhole cover a Zombie?s cabbage head peeps, soft & green Jaws distended, mouth ready To gnaw the first wayward ankle. IX. At the zombie prom, the teenage boy Zombies stuff their liquefying chests into Boiled white shirts & tuxedos, Shuffle their dates around the dance floor. X. In a postapocalyptic NYC, The zombie mayoral candidate Has ham hands marbled like mortadella And gives liverish kisses to babies. XI. Bloodless pop musicians: Climb those charts, oh zombies, but quickly, quickly. XII. The clouds are moving. The zombies must be flying. XIII. I do not know which to prefer: The urban zombie in black latex bondage pants or The country zombie in daisy dukes, Checkered shirt, & cowboy boots.