Midnight has passed.
The kerosene lamp
is the only thing on
in the kitchen.
I tip-toe out for
our secret ritual.
“Hungry again,”
my grandmother asks?
I nod. There wasn’t
much to eat
now that the garden
had browned out
and snow came up to
the porch-step.
In the tiny pool of
yellow light
on the
oilcoth-covered table,
she opens a stack of
saltine crackers,
splits the wax paper
wrapping
to a domino line of
leaning squares,
salt-crackled and
crisp. The dish
of butter was
already waiting.
With one broad knife
she spreads
the golden soft
butter on one,
then two, then half
a dozen.
Hunched over the
cracker feast,
we nibble as quietly
as mice.
In every room, the
sleepers breathe.
We bite – one
snorts – we chew —
another begins to
snore – we swallow —
as someone moans and
turns to one side.
They never hear us,
and never will.
“One more?” my
grandmother asks me,
broad butter knife
in hand.
“Just one,” I
say. If I eat one,
she eats another.
Somehow we always
find two at the
bottom.
A cup of spring
water to wash them down,
a good-night wave at
the kitchen door,
and I creep back to
bed. You never
go to bed hungry if
a grandmother is there.
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