When the whole family gathered
at the Thanksgiving table
we’d laugh at all the things that had come falling 
or swooping out of closets. 
All of us together, this one time each year
to recount the outrageous pranks 
and laugh until we cried, even the victims among us.
 
There were black rubber bats on strings
squealing from the dark
or creepy clowns you thought had been thrown away
and that time my mother perched  
the metal-jointed wooden doll with her peeling face 
on top of my almost-closed closet door 
so that Felicity seemed to lunge at me 
when I flung the door open,
her sharp little hands beating at my temples 
as she rocked back and forth 
before clumsily thumping to the floor.
 
The closet pranks started before I was born
when Pop Pop pretended to leave for work
then crept upstairs to hide in the bedroom closet 
until Nana opened it 
and he rigidly toppled on her like a proper stiff. 
 
We gathered ‘round the table and held hands 
while Pop Pop recited his Latin grace. 
The food was warm and savory 
with its palette of late fall colors tipping into winter
and always enough
so we could savor and relish stories of the unexpected. 
Funny how each family cultivates its own version of crazy
its own way of bracing for what the world has in store.