POEMS
A sampling of poems found in The Pugilist’s Daughter, published by Blue Jade Press, LLC, in Spring 2022.
BOSTON
We learn myths about love at age three.
A stranger on the T wearing Red Sox attire
And a tuxedo jacket smiles at me
In my Levi’s jeans and long-sleeve T
That reads Save Darfur.
We learn myths about love at age three.
Will stranger attend a baseball game or symphony?
Will he invite me I wonder, as I recall last October
Your tuxedo jacket smiles at me
When you cook blueberry pancakes, brew Colombian coffee
But do not invite me to the opera and I pretend not to care.
We learn myths about love at age three.
After breakfast, I seek clues I’m your Persephone.
Between oceans and suns you’d fight for me like a Centaur.
Your tuxedo jacket smiles at me.
Memories inhabit a North End café consuming ouzo and cannoli.
No Pegasus rescue, your ghost sits beside me in an empty chair.
We learn myths about love at age three
A tuxedo jacket smiles at me.
IS THAT HIMMLER BITING HIS HIND PAW?
Inside Poland’s fragile borders, I seek out
a city I love. Kraków is a pungent memory.
Thirteenth-century cobblestones.
Sixteenth-century synagogues.
A discovery, an obsession. Swastikas
shoved sideways in overgrown graveyards
and I trip on weeds and reeds and more
swastikas desecrate cemetery gates.
Caretakers moved away or were murdered.
Tainted tombstones stacked fifteen deep
choke on Polish slurs. German insults.
I stumble into Auschwitz chasing the dead.
A fat gray cat with red blades for eyes
chases me. Hisses and growls. I run away
and hear an almost human-like voice
shout RAUS RAUS RAUS. Razor-blades
for eyes glare. I return to an unsettled
Jewish quarter where ancient goblets
filled with the honey liqueur of tears
overflow onto a Vistula River of sacrifice
and sin. Inside a modern café I devour
chocolate babka and English translations
that read, What is poetry which does not
save Nations or people? so I must unearth
Czesław Miłosz to ask him if the dead
are still disguised as birds because
while walking in Auschwitz this morning,
I saw a gray cat I suspect might be—
THE PUNCH
I can’t forget that night.
The night I learned I don’t want kids.
The night I learned lonely is safer.
The night his fist broke through their bedroom wall.
The night I learned I don’t want kids.
The night I inked Mom’s black and blues into my journal.
The night his fist broke through their bedroom wall.
I want to forget that night.
The night I inked Mom’s black and blues into my journal.
I can’t forget Dad’s screams.
I want to forget that night.
I sat on my closet floor listening to Dad throw jars.
I can’t forget Dad’s screams.
I tasted fear the way eight-year-olds tasted ice cream.
I sat on my closet floor listening to Dad throw jars.
I hid under my bed and wished Dad dead.
I tasted fear the way eight-year-olds tasted ice cream.
I remember Mom’s eyes after, thick with dread.
I hid under my bed and wished Dad dead.
I can’t forget Mom’s pleas.
I remember Mom’s eyes after, thick with dread.
I’m tired of trying to expunge that night.
I can’t forget Mom’s pleas.
My hands armed with boxing gloves.
I’m tired of trying to expunge that night.
When I started writing inside my bedroom closet.
My hands armed with boxing gloves.
I’m sick of memory’s holding pattern.
When I started writing inside my bedroom closet.
The night I learned lonely is safer.
I’m sick of memory’s holding pattern.
I can’t forget that night.
BREATH
This once was a park
now it is a hospital—
Our mouths—infectious
Silence and distance
We rehearse a new lexis—
I attempt to sign
Earth snores and loots our
oxygen—This begins our
isolation—masked
I read loneliness
kills as much as smoking does
Soon I will be dead
HISTORY
When do we look backward
and smile at what we see
Lunches that embarrassed us become cool—
kasha varnishkes & luchen kugel
we tossed away at school,
suddenly an homage
to our beloved Grandma Rose—
When did we start rearranging memory