by Natalie Martusciello
My father and his brother hovering watchfully
over the hissing stovetop, raw shrimp and squid
falling into the yellow bath of canola oil.
My sister and brother and I roaming the quiet
neighborhood after dark to admire the Christmas
lights, glowing brightly against the indigo December
night and breathing warmth into the frigid air.
From the opposite end of the street we can still
smell the savory, fattening aroma of fried seafood
wafting from the window above the sink. Soon
we are racing back to the house, and I am not worrying
about the way my stomach might bounce slightly as I run or the
estimated calorie count of our seven-course meal that
will stretch into the early morning. I am thinking only
about the chocolate reindeer Aunt Mary gave to
me and the lemon meringue pie and tiramisu we
can eat only after dinner and watching my step as I
dash down the frost-covered pavement so as not to slip.
I wonder now whether my great-aunts loved or loathed
their curvaceous Neopolitan bodies, whether they worried
about the unconcealable curves of their bellies as they
bent over to retrieve the Baccalá from the refrigerator,
or flaunted their figures proudly in the tenements
of Little Italy the way I wear the silver Cornicello
around my neck, an unmistakable mark of our culture.
As they posed in the black-and-white photograph beside my
slender grandmother on her wedding day, French blood flowing
elegantly beneath her powdered sugar skin, a-line gown hugging her
petite waist, feminine and desirable, did they too hurt the way that I do,
trapped within the riptide of perpetual comparison?
I am my great-grandfather’s refusal to alter our family name
upon his arrival at Ellis Island. I am the Parvotti and Caruso that crackled
from his phonograph and filled his living room with emotion
and reverence. I am the iridescent sapphire of the Gulf of Naples.
I am the lost language my grandmother disapproved of her
late husband’s family using in her presence. I am the embodiment
of a history not entirely lost.
Natalie Martusciello is originally from Long Island, New York. She is an English major and Creative Writing concentrator at the College of Charleston. Her short story “Superstition” was published in the spring 2021 issue of MSU Roadrunner Review. This is her first poem that has been published.