Every Air-Borne Particle

Abstract

She seems to me a giant woman, who swings her body against me with each step she takes. I try every trick I know to match her great strides, but I am unsuccessful. Like openjaws, her fingers swallow my hand. I am a balloon bouncing at the end of a taut string. I wiggle my fingers. My grandmother will not give me back my hand. Why does she clutch me so tightly? Am I to guard her from the Goyim, or is she protecting me from the unknown terrors of my little Michigan town? We walk: through the uphill-downhill sidewalks, where the cement sometimes stands straight up to meet the stubborn contours of the land. We hurry through the horse-chestnut, oak, and maples, past wonderful old houses with high-up bay windows where sleeping beauties might prick their fingers. Bobeh looks neither to the left or to the right. I glance up at her face. She is not wearing her teeth. Her mouth is caved in like those little dried apple dolls at the county fair. Her black wig is slightly tipsy; I can see her gray hair peeking out underneath. She does not look like the neat, proper grandmothers of my friends who are not Jewish. I say, Bobeh, please talk to me in English; this is America.