At the Beach

mechaye, a pleasure, a delight.
Yiddish dictionary.

My grandmothers are at the beach.  
Nana sails proudly forward,
removes her robe with a flourish
to unveil her boned black bathing suit

turns to make sure everyone sees
her figure, sleek as a yacht, her slim elegant legs;
the upward thrust of her bosom,
beneath the white mast of her long neck.

Holding her daughter’s arm,
my other grandmother rides the sand,
a slowly steaming ocean liner,
broad and square, laughing

as my grandfather, the towboat perhaps,
puts down a big bag of deli and removes
her robe for her to reveal skin rough
and mottled from years at the beach

A slight sneer flits across Nana's face,
at the sight of the undisciplined flesh,
and then she sighs: she will lower herself
for the sake of her daughter’s husband.

Together, my grandmothers walk into
the waves and stop in a few feet of water
and this is what I want my children to know:
how both women splash water on the deep

furrows of their cleavage and exclaim,
a mechaye! a mechaye! because long ago,
in Odessa or Riga, they learned that this
is how a Jewish matron greets the ocean.

**
Published in Anthology Golden Words 2013
Winner of the 2013 Maine Laureate contest.