Sunrise, Sunset

My son stands, hip deep, in the Atlantic

thin flowered dress plastered to his thighs

walking along the surf, pushing his curls

behind his ears, the long, thin fingers

topped by  bitten nails.

Delicate eyebrows shade his blue eyes,

the same shade of blue as mine.

I am mesmerized by his beauty.

Blessed with ignorance

that he has already started

weekly injections

into those pale thighs.

In a few months,

the blood will stop flowing

from his shriveling uterus.

My son turns, smiles,

blows me a kiss.

A wave drenches him

and he laughs.

For his 18^th birthday,

he changed his name.

I say kaddish for my daughter-dreams

and rock my new born son

in my arms.

2nd Place, Gwendolyn Brooks Award 2019

Published in Revelry 2019

Three Seasons of Glass

                                                                   

Scratching at the glass

the casing the sills

I suck the tiny

lead paint infected

wood flakes

from under my nails

feeding the pica that will kill me

sometime in the future.

Snow builds up on the grilles

ice patterns on the panes

hold my hand to melt another pattern.

It is cold here, almost as cold as out there

no one looks my way

no one looks at me

no one sees

no one remembers

me, licking the glass, waiting.

Rain makes new designs

wearing off the dirt

press against the glass

banging head until welts form.

Blood trails bookmatch the rivulets

Harder. More blood.

I see the sky,

deeper blue behind the rain,

as I wait and wait, for sun.

The ice Floes

I’ve left my mates, dying, on tundra tracks

Opening the small tins of potted meat

Discover just sawdust inside to eat

I sledged, exhausted, past the icy cracks

Whether cold, scurvy, or evil attacks

Dragging myself, my tent, my stove for heat

Despair. I stagger on, with frozen feet

I dream my mates are dead, piled in stacks

Arctic summer flowers, it lasts a night

I press on, snow blind, wind howls, black toes

I press on, voices sing, strip off my clothes

Arctic winter sullen, it ends a life

Perhaps, they’ll find my smiling corpse one day

Perhaps, they’ll leave a marker where I lay.

Winner 1st Place 2019 FSPA Petrarchan Sonnet

Wool Jacket

You never said a word.

“What did you do in the war, Daddy?”

“I was in Italy.

Four years in Italy.

I came back, mostly in one piece.”

I button the heavy wool

suitable for mountains and trenches

but not the Florida sunshine.

Go outside to smoke a cigarette

blowing smoke rings

like you taught me.

The match glow highlights my bones

so I look like you.

Silent, too thin, lost in that hell

which left you with a limp

a long skinny scar

from midspine to thigh

and a Purple Heart

you kept in your sock drawer.

“Nothing to say, baby girl.

I went. I came home.”

I mash out the cigarette in a seashell

and bury my face in the musty wool of

Daddy’s war.

Winner 1st Place 2017 FSPA Lt George Birkner Memorial Award

The Quest for the Holy Grail

Hot

Juicy

Toothsome

Sliding down my throat

Gooey stringiness

Accented with texture

Spongy exterior with a

Solid interior

Just a tad salty

Now that’s what I call

A perfect mushroom-swiss burger

Checkers

99 cents

Last Call

I hear you calling,

you and my friends

from the old neighborhood.

They want to play stickball

and shootzies

and war, pretending

the dirt mounds in the junkyard

are foxholes.

But we didn’t know from foxholes,

not then, not yet,

not for a few more years, anyway.

You’re all calling me to come,

come out and play,

tell us about Big City Adventures

and small city escapades.

I hear one soft voice

inside all the other voices

sometimes reading with me

and I correct your pronunciation

of the harder words.

I hear one voice, your voice,

calling me,

come, come out,

it’s time to come out and play,

your voice,

my baby brother,

my best friend.

I heard your first cry

and your last whimper

and your call.

Borrowed Pajamas

You borrowed a too big tee-shirt

when you spent the night

so big it grazed your knees.

It shrank in the wash.

Now, it barely brushes your hip bones.

It shrank

over the long years

of borrowing and

not borrowing.

The neckline which hung off your shoulders

settles nicely on your collarbone.

Your face fades from the mirror

while I brush my teeth.

I fold the shirt

place it on the closet shelf

shut the door.



3rd Place, Gwendolyn Brooks Award 2020

Library Nooks

Memories of here with my mother

Did we sit and read, look at pictures?

Each book another color, different binding,

faded, new, embossed.

Love for words sacred source

a place with books always

a haven

a heaven.

When pain and hunger clawed

she lost herself in words

crawled into the pages

under the flyleaf.

Will I tell her story?

Will I tell my own?

Each book another color

Walls of books surround us

I transcribe the echoes of her whispers

write our stories

and am

Happy

Prospect Park 1973

It was a long ride on a warm spring afternoon

when no one was home anyway to miss me

The meadow grass called, Reading Time!

I was fourteen and alone, gloriously alone.

I lay there on my belly

deep into Jane Eyre

for the fifth time.

A young man stopped running

sat down next to me his hands on

mythighswaistass talking

asking questions as I tried to read.

Confused, resentful, scared,

he threw a leg over mine.

I was fourteen and alone.

Two men on their bicycles paused

called to me, “Hey, miss, is that guy

bothering you?” I was silent, motionless.

“Punk, get your hands off her. Now, punk.”

They stood there, waiting as he

rolled away, walked away, muttering

about strangers bothering people.

The men came closer as I put my book

in my knapsack, picked up my bicycle.

“Miss, it’s not safe here, not for a young girl.

You’re what? Fourteen? And you’re alone.

“We have daughters. Please be careful.”

They rode with me to the avenue.

I went home, still alone.

Baby Shoes

The clearance rack way  back

near the restrooms

is filled with mismatched shoes.

The worn display right foot  

the pristine boxed left shoe

shoes who’ve lost their mates

under some coatrack

and the odd sizes

rejected by parents

‘because kids grow so damned fast these days,

it ain’t worth buying shoes that fit.

Just size em up.’

I browse the rack of toddler shoes

white cowboy boots

faux patent leather mary janes

complete with taps

light up sneakers.

I slide my hands into the sneakers,

dance them along the shelf, the side bar,

bins of public domain DVDs

wishing I could make

starlight

with my feet.

And there it is! A pair of

purple fringed sandals

double buckles

and a pale yellow flower

over the big toe

like a gaudy cocktail ring.

They are size 11.

I imagine them on my baby’s feet,

her painted toenails wearing

That Big Yellow Flower.

They even have glitter.

Every little girl wants

purple glitter

double buckle

yellow flower

fringed sandals.

Every mommy wants to see her baby in

purple glitter

double buckle

yellow flower

fringed sandals

with tiny green and pink toenails glowing.

I take them out to Long Island

and leave them on aisle seven

instead of a pebble.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart

Every year

the chorus on the

other side of the veil

grows.

Numb to the oldest members’

tenor-alto-soprano, their buzzes

are a gentle sting at the base of my spine.

The newest addition, an off-key tenor,

with raucous glee,

chants his own version

of that ancient hymn.

His fingers caress my scars, pausing

against the shadowed fractures of my ribs,

as they climb,

until they cradle my naked skull.

He removes his kippah,

the one I made him

for some long-forgotten event,

puts it on me

to keep me warm.

The only voice I hear is mine,

chanting the kaddish

as I light the candles,

adding one.

Summer Vacation 1963 Revised

No matter how much gas you put in the tank,

it does not mend a broken piston.

Two or three or some-other-number

days wait for a replacement, here,

on the northeast side of

We-Got-Lost, Canada.

Or a local farmer might maybe make

alliterations and altercations to a

tractor engine

sufficient reshaping for a

Sturdy American Sedan,

crammed full of adults, teens and

One Small Child,

who wonders if the bats

flying against the window

are vampires and if they

break that window,

will they kill her?

One Small Child, wrapped

smaller still, huddled under the

bed, so she can’t see

that big window with no curtain,

those fluttering wings, or

hear the high pitched squeaks

that sound just like her, when she hid

in the backseat footwell

to avoid her brothers’ pinches.

Perhaps the farmer can reshape

her small enough to

box her and

ship her

home.

FRYING LOTS OF LATKES IN A PAN

FRYING LOTS OF LATKES IN A PAN

Candles glow
watch them flicker
every home
they are dancing
a beautiful sight
we're happy tonight
frying lots of latkes in a pan

Gone away was the oil
Here to stay is new oil
It burns for eight nights
we’re happy tonight
frying lots of latkes in a pan

On the lawn we can set a blow up
Our One Armed Giant Dreidel Bear
He’ll be joined by Junior
But where’s mama?     
Amazon can do the job
with Super Prime!

Later on                                      

we’ll have donuts                         

Maybe holes and some sour cream                                   

With warm applesauce                  

We’re having a blast            

frying lots of latkes in a pan

On the lawn we can set a blow up  

Our One Armed Giant Dreidel Bear

We’ll have fun with One Armed Dreidel
Til the sun and wind knock him down

When its cold                                        

Ain’t it thrilling             

Though our noses get chilling                 

We’ll frolic and play                                        

the Florida Way           

frying lots of latkes in a pan

frying lots of latkes in a pan          

frying lots of latkes in a pan

Adonai Dayam Ha-Emet - final version

Adonai Dayan ha-Emet          

God is the One True Judge                            

Aveinu Malkeinu,                                                                 [Our Father, Our King]

Once, if I were honest, more than once, much more,

I wish I still lived alone

Just me, my pens, my books

And the ducks, murmuring under the street lamp.

Train whistles,

Who’s ready? Who’s willing? Who’s able?

            All Aboard!

Aveinu Malkeinu, Chaneinu V'aneinu                             [Our Father, Our King,

But I do not live alone.                                                       Be gracious and answer us]

Other people, things, inhabit this temporary home,

            Of bodies and offal

            On the search for real

I, responsible for detritus, distracted and rerouted

By not alone. Home is a vial of ash.

Ki ein banu ma'asim.                                                                   [For we have little merit]

In my heart, I am always alone.

Ase imanu,                                                                                     [Treat us with kindness]

Midnight.  I feed the ducks, throwing stale bread upon the water.

At sunrise, they sit on the edge of the eave and

Stare through the pane.

I am afraid that they, hungry, will break the glass.

Tzedakah vachesed,                                                                    [And be our help]

I am a walking suicide.

Ase imanu, tzedakah vachesed,                                                [Treat us with kindness,

I am more alone than I am with,                                                 And be our help]

More surprised when not surprised by the shadows of others

As they talk in the galleries

And I make tea and sandwiches

And salt the buttered bread

Memory of the dead and nearly dead and

Might as well be dead and draped mirrors

Playacting that I connect with those I serve.

Vehoshiyeinu.                                                                               [And save our people]

The conductor holds the door, impatient,

Calling me night after night.

All aboard! Where’s your ticket,

Reading the numbers inked

on the inside of my forearm.

The ducks sing Adonai dayan ha-emet                                   [God is the True Judge]

And then I hear nothing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adonai dayan ha-emet: God is the True judge

Baruch atah Adonai, elohainu melach Haolem, dayan ha-emet.

The Hebrew blessing on hearing of a death :

Blessed is the Eternal One, Ruler of the Universe, the True Judge.

From the High Holy Day Services, a Prayer for Forgiveness

Aveinu Malkeinu,                                Our Father, our King,
Chaneinu V'aneinu,                             Be Gracious and Answer us
ki ein banu ma'asim.                          For we have little merit.
Ase imanu tzedakah vachesed,           Treat us with kindness, be our help
vehoshiyeinu.                                     And save our people.

Aveinu Malcheinu, be gracious and answer us, for we have little merit.

Treat us generously and with kindness, and be our help.

Road Trash

Sparkles of early morning light distract so I stop,

pull out of traffic onto the grassy embankment

wondering what tidbit discard  did I find,

there, on the edge of noisy busy nowhere

with no pedestrian access.

Only cars trucks buses exceeding the posted speed limits

by a radar detection margin

and the occasional bicyclist, traveling slow enough

for aberrant markers pass along  this byway to tourist heaven,

littered with fast food debris and other:

Shattered keyboard from a child’s computer

keys scattered, wires and circuits and

chips loose, curly plastic connecting the stylus.

A few feet away, a stuffed dog,

chewed, worn, weathered, loved, at some past time.

Which was the anger and which the revenge?

And who how much more I have had it up to there!

did not stop for wails of regret

to retrieve these precious

because it was lesson time?

The dog is missing an eye.

I reassemble the readalong,

tether the dog with the stylus,

and mark their passing with wildflowers,

another roadside tragedy.