Page 57 - WTP Vol.VII #2

Ruth KnaFo Setton
My Father Eats Figs
My father eats figs
the way he eats his past, spits out the skin.
and ballet shoes, arms raised, as we pirouette
on broken pavement.
He eats figs and stares
out the window at Mrs. Grimm’s curtains: she knows
Mom mans the record player. Neighbors watch.
Dancing dolls with painted
our secret, how we emerged from the jungle. She watches me with green eyes and razor lips.
cheeks, swaying like the palms we’ve already forgotten.
The phone rings—Dad runs inside.
Witch, djinn, she eats children and buries their bones
in her backyard—I’ve been there.
We dance and dance, and it’s years
before we see him again.
My father eats figs
the way he and his father ate eggs on the farm
of the other world: boiled in their shells— peeled and swallowed
whole, devouring a dozens
at a time. He eats figs, watches my sister and me, white tulle
Born in Morocco, Setton is the author of the novel The Road to Fez. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, Pennsylvania Coun- cil on the Arts, PEN, and Writer’s Digest. Her fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays have won awards and appeared in many literary journals and anthologies. A former fiction editor of Arts & Letters, she has taught creative writ- ing at Lehigh University, PA, and on semesteratsea.org, and is presently working on a new novel and a screenplay.
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