MITCH GRABOIS
Deli Destiny
On the other hand
I sometimes wondered
if I were fulfilling
my destiny
I’d been named Max after my grandfather
who owned a delicatessen in Brooklyn
a decent living
a good hideout from European hatred
anti-Jewish riots that tore villages apart
While still a young man
he died from a hernia
after lifting a pickle barrel
Who did he think he was
the Mighty Atom?
The shop was closed
my grandmother became a seamstress
Later she married a furrier
a bald man who drank schnapps
and listened to opera
The Holocaust began
Between Sisyphus and Henry Miller
My boss, Goldstein, made me Sisyphus
moving heavy pickle barrels from one end of the storeroom
to the other
with no logic that I could see
other than to keep me busy
and humiliate me
The exercise didn’t strengthen me
it weakened me
Whatever doesn’t kill you
makes you weaker
Goldstein’s daughter Eppa
made me Henry Miller
She looked like a mousy Jewish girl
but was a sexual adventurer
She’d staked me as her territory
her terrain
Goldstein enjoyed watching me struggle with the barrels
Eppa enjoyed seeing the sweat roll down my face
as she whipped me into sexual calisthenics
Between Sisyphus and Henry Miller
the gods exulted in my trials
and triumphs
Mitch Grabois was born in the Bronx and now lives in Denver. His short fiction and poetry has appeared in countless literary magazines, most recently The Doctor T.J. Eckleberg Review, Memoir Journal, Out of Our and The Blue Hour. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, most recently for his story Purple Heart published in The Examined Life in 2012. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, published by Xavier Vargas E-ditions, is available for all e-readers for 99 cents through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords (which also provides downloads to PCs).
