Joshua Cohen - Witz

Enough.

O, if only His parents would have died! It would have been enough .

If only His parents and His sisters would have died, it would have been enough .

If only His parents and His sisters and His PopPop would have died, it would have been enough .

If only His parents and His sisters and His PopPop and then all of Them, except the firstborn, would have died, it would have been enough .

If only His parents and His sisters and His PopPop then all of Them, save the firstborns, and then even Them, and then even the saved firstborns they die, dayeinu, Gottenyu, it would have been enough …to say, this’ll probably futz you scarred for life, what did Israel call Him, boychick, and then would say along with Hanna, this hurts us more than it hurts — nu, you’re thanked then praised, almightily. And not just that and living and unharmed, which are as lentils flung to the spring’s harsh wind, the lost half of the afikomen sharded small in the light of His parents and people dead, it’s that He’s safer now than ever, emerged bathed clean, roofslept, and with His fortune secured, the return’s reward, the birthright collecting interest…enough to say, stop that kvetch, but me no buts, I’ve had enough of all your whine. This geshray and bitch bemoan. That nothing’s enough. Nothing’s good enough for you. An only son, how He’s an only Messiah, too, and whether false or not no matter as so far unopposed — hymn, He’s thinking, and that’s supposed to be a pass, a snowday, a Florida vacation taken off from the mind and its daily duty. What an overprivileged pisher. Taking each breath for granted curse. You’re never satisfied. Impossible to please. But this, it’s not His fault He was faulted this way. Brought up to expect so much more of Himself that He rages that better others fail. Responsible, that’s how He’s raised, that’s how He would’ve been at least then college, career, a wife with kinder of their love, themselves to be bathed clean, roofed, and sleeping rich in a house of their own that didn’t have to be recreated as consciously as here, as He would’ve bought that way, they would’ve. Nextdoor with weekly suppers simple. And then adjacent plots with matching stones, opposite His parents, her having taken the Israelien name, the veil of His mother that is the oven’s hood. Graves visited monthly and wellmaintained, we’re talking. Again, remembered with a rock.

As the prophets always say, He’s not getting off that easy…

Above the Hall’s portico, Ben stands facing the islands offIsland, the city to come, over the railing reclining into weather. In the freeze, a squint of reflected moon. Out there, it’s quiet, corpsed in hush: all five boroughs and the sixth of the ice pierced with regret, with even Joysey in mourning, from the beaches up through the pines and the smokestacked clouds; businesses have been shuttered; minds have been closed; churches lie smoldering, rubble neglecting even to fall…Manhattan, a cincture of cinder. Shiva, once its success has been proven over an extended engagement at the Israelien household, is taken national, then worldwide, spends itself from hurst to wood to burg, to glen to city, yadda, each discharging its public rites, the performance of municipal ablution with media assured; solidarity, shtum. All ends on a Sunday, the day of the rising, of Hosanna and olden unction…the Sunday of palms holding its day weeks prior to Easter, which’s been forgotten, too, as if a gust’s direction, its windy directive, Easter, go Easter and Easter — weeks more waxed a wane down through their days, inked through the boxes of the calendar, ticked off nick by prick upon the face of the stovetop, its timer and that of the microwave deprogrammed and unplugged, to what once had been that fake or falsest of days if with true intention, marketed for the honoring of Mothers. O Hanna, He’s forgotten your Hallmark, your slippers over the rugs soft and sinking, your heels on the hardwood tapping impatience, anger, displeasure with yourself the punishment of rage — the weight of your approach, the force of your presence, your warm and sucky flesh; knows only the posthumous linger, the cold breath of your skirts and your blouses in the closet once mirrored in Him, that smell of perfume #5 you’d shpritz to your wrist; how the sweetened flowers — last year’s irises — would’ve been delivered with a card signed with Israel’s name to wilt then die in a vase in a hall, now shattered, glued, reglued, and then shattered again; Wanda would’ve made sure, Wanda who never forgets, marks the boxes on her own calendar a recreation of the one hanging from a loosened tack upstairs at the wall scuffed by the slammed opening of the frontdoor, the archivists and the historical maids, such experts; watches the clock an eye for an eye, watches her watch, which was a gift given to her by Israel and Hanna for a holiday she didn’t observe; on break, how she reminds Israel an entire Friday before; gives him a second call at the office, notice ample like breasts, following up urgently with his secretary, a final warning, get her a gift, who, your wife, whoever you might’ve married While You Were Out, as it’s dated, timed, a slipping pink, a scribble; Loreta running off a form, a replicate, yet another rejectable settlement in triplicate, and demanded ASAP, puts her on hold while she waits for the feed, then through to his extension, his voice; Hello, you’ve reached Israel Israelien, I’m not able to take your call, but if you would please — leaves a message, hangs up.

Inroit an end. The calendar leaves wilting to blotches of ink, blatt blowing off and away on a wind from the west; the hands of the clocking watch on the wrist slowing to stasis, clasping each other at dawn and dusk, then at every other time between — the freezing of the tide and its moon of one face, turnedcheek lune with its modest blush; opposite the sun, resting its house-warming, retiring to the reflection of Miami behind the clouds to putter about at an altitude no sky could ever scrape, highrisen amid the greatest lot ever vacant. Though it’s been worthless since day one, which was day never, obsolete since forever, time is presently asserting its purpose, its fundamental truth: as a nothingness, against which to measure death. A height marked short at the doorjamb, hinges tall and growing. Noon is lunch. Dinner means six. Linner and dunch indulging between. Hunched, tired, icesalted. Sandy Hook hikes its pants over the waist of the state. Newark exhales. Bereaved, bereft, weakened. Were it another time, if one could exist, if there might be two species of nothingness and those both existing concurrently, the city might invite this: lying elder and willow at the foot of the ass kicked through the gates, which are located, it’s said, on both sides of the Tunnel. As for its rider, it’s been said He’d preach, too: withholding, limitation…no new taxes, He’d promise, better health care and schools for our kinder — before ascending, then forgetting everything, every promise, every preachment unpracticed and then everyone, as well, that’d ever helped Him, who got Him where and who he is, today — to the Temple. Then trashing it as badly as His house shall require our cleaning. Tzedakah’s always welcome, then with admission you are, too — reservations not required; how the people don’t even need to be reminded anymore, informed as to what they’re ignoring, what they’ve forgotten, what’s forsaken, no — more like what or Who they’re supposed to be venerating next. A given up given over, a negative lent. An altar stood on its head.

Palm Sunday proves a lesser passing: in silence, without ceremony, host to no circumstance; lashes stay in without pomp or parade; the people dressed down sit at their tables and cry; station to station it’s static, the mating call of snow…empty avenues and streets, the underground tunnels of the trains stilled in rust; Staten Island stranded in a lawn of ice, which is fenced in by concrete, which is cemented to earth that’s ungated; Midtown a block abandoned even by shadows; no one’s seen: eyes cast out like stones at their feet they can’t even see each other, or won’t; no sound’s heard beyond the weather: their ears have become cold, and listen only within; how they’re all inside, they’re interiorized, palms in their palms not knowing what to do: discussing, debating, planning for which to prepare. Ben remains inside the Registry to which His room’s been transferred, its furniture, His filthy heap entire: the bed, the chest of drawers intact and rumpled with the lamp atop unlit. He yawns. Idle hands, idler palms. He undoes His robe, extracts. Verily, at the gates of His loneliness, which are His legs, His thighs with their hindquarters lamed, by an angel named I’m curious, as if to prevent escape, postpone His flee, Him lazily limping — He lays down His loads, unburdens Himself of skin. Upon this Sunday, which is the outdated, outmoded Sabbath, He lashes Himself with His palms. Fast then slow and shvitzy. A Garden without a tree to damn Him whether with shade or fruit, He’ll seed Himself alone. As if to mark the stations of an inheritance unshed.