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TO A FATHER, NEVER KNOWN
You were to be my prophetand you played Jonah one morningby clutching your chest at the sinkand dropping to the floor, dead.You left me to wanderthrough Ninevah, a beggartwice robbed of originground pulled from beneath my feet.Why did you flee your taskthe one for which you were anointed.Couldn’t you see our home laid ruinconsumed by…
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FINALLY
It should have been an abruption.That is how he wanted it, how it wouldhave been easier for all but he was notprone to confrontation and so it lingered,depleting, eroding, wearing down untilthere was finally the longed for abruption. He did not see it coming, it camefrom out of nowhere, a fuse litmuch earlier, the explosion…
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MOTHERS’ DAY
This is the day I am supposedto honor my motherbut I am torn as to which motherI should pay tribute, or is itboth or possibly neither.One carried me, bore meinto life and departed,for my good, for hers andthe grave has sworn her to silence.Is it the woman whoadopted me, I her onlyuntil her new husbandgave…
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MIND
It takes so little to take you back. It takes no thinking but sensing to take you back.You catch an aroma of a fresh baked pie and you are thirteen and baking for the first time, apple with a lattice top for a parent soon back from the hospital. A song played in memory of…
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RECENT MEMORIES
Looking through your wedding albumtwenty years after a midlife marriageyou are quickly awash in emotions.There is the joy of the moment, magnifiedduring the succeeding years, andthe rekindled memories of peopleand moments of the day forgottenor lost in the tumult that is attendanton any wedding, first or second.But there is a deep sadness as well,at those…
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LIVE ON GOLIATH
It wasn’t easy being a fat kid,chubby my parents liked to call it,but we both know I was fat.And both Jewish and shortfor good measure, and I wasn’tphysically adept at any sport,so, yes, I was an easy targetand several kids couldn’tpass that opportunity by.But I imagined I was Davidand all of the Goliaths fellat my…
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FAMILY
Of the few remaining cousins, nowas old as I, a number we do not mentionor want to believe that he was her onlylover, as though she was the young girlwho left Charleston for Washington, D.C.They cite, as justifying empirical evidence,that she never married, alwaysthe beloved aunt, nothing more allowed.My later discovered existencelaid waste to their…
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WHENCE
When you ask me from wheremy family comes, do notlook surprised when I answerthat it depends on the directionof the wind, but with natureas no more than a passive observer.In my case it is the fickle windsof war and diplomacy that markmy origins, my maternal rootsdeeply planted in soil Lithuanian orperhaps Russian or briefly Polish.And…
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HORSING AROUND
At some point in time I imaginemy mother’s family must’ve hadhorses, or perhaps the ones they sawwere the horses of the locals,an aide when you are conductinga pogram, chasing familiesfrom their homes, into a flight to freedom.Perhaps my family were farmersor merchants in Lithuania, thoughprobably not owning a drugstoreas their children did in CharlstonWest Virginia,…
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FELIS CATUS
When you live with the cat,which is to say when a catallows you to live in her home,you quickly learn a wholenew language, a few words hers,mono- or bisyllabic, words for yes,food, brush, clean up my litter,and in our case even thank you, rarely used.And you expand your own vocabularyas well, for English is often…
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an old writer and his words 