lunch with my 101-year-old aunt


by Jan Ball

I can smell the medicinal odor of her
gangrenous leg rotting under the white
restaurant tablecloth as she comments
in a loud, deaf voice on various family
members-litanyesque-looking up from
her liver and onions for an Ora Pro Nobis
response but we merely smile over our
own perfectly boned dover sole with capers
as she tells us that her sister’s tenant farmer
in Arkansas is not paying his rent regularly
then relates matter-of-factly that my cousin,
Christina, died, the only one who used to
rescue my sister and me from the slobbery
kisses of my uncles who passed around Jim
Beam downstairs as they watched wrestling
on tv in Chicago’s poor Polish Ghetto when
we visited my Polish grandparents as children.
According to my aunt, Christina’s alcoholic
brother had his foot surgically removed, too.

I look around for a waiter who might
know the heimlich maneuver in case
Aunt chokes on the bacon slices she is
gobbling from her diminishing lunch,
but I only see a thin young man with
an earring like Johnny Depp wears
in Pirates of the Caribean who is pouring
iced water into glasses fogged with moisture
and I can’t imagine him squeezing Aunt from
behind until she expectorates the bacon rind
that might get stuck in her throat. Other elderly
people who are scattered around the room like
Las Vegas gamblers lift forkfuls of mashed
potatoes to their lips with Parkinson hands
or leave red lipstick smudges on strawberry
martinis and next month we will see them
no more.