May 3, 2023

PEKING

Chi-Chi was a cute peke
in a very “runt of the litter”
sort of way, cuddly but
hardly the show dog
her breeders had intended.
I asked why she was called
Chi-Chi and my father searched
and showed me her AKC
papers, with the full name
that would’ve made those
of Spanish royalty
pause to consider the brevity
of their seemingly endless names.
She was a simple joy, followed me
around like a furry ankle bracelet.
She loved most everyone, she
was loved in return, save
for the always angry neighbor
and for him she transmuted
into a true lion dog of China
guarding the gates of the palace.

April 1, 2023

ON ITS HEAD

Death has an uncanny knack
for turning normalcy on its head.
My mother was never ready
at the time my parents had to leave
either selecting outfits
or jewelry, the right shoes,
as my father stood by fidgeting
and looking at his watch,
knowing better than to say anything.
Yet she left without notice,
no delays at all, just suddenly gone
so unlike her to make a simple exit.
And he, the man who was always
punctual, who left at the exact
moment planned save for her issues,
he lingered, a slow departure
by inches, fading away, until
only a shell of the man remained
and that, too, finally slipped away.

March 24, 2023

RADIOACTIVE

I cannot say for certain which day
I became the familial isotope,
but I know my parents began
accreting neutrons not long
after their marriage, bound
to their mutual core, unbound
from me, adopted into the family,
and I then became the isotope
of the family but remote,
easily enough forgotten,
when I was not present.
That is, I suppose, one possible
fate for an isotope, it’s familial
half-life up and then forgotten.

But perhaps it was just
that I was the family’s
Schrödinger’s cat, finally put
in a box into which
no one chose to look.

March 3, 2023

WETLAND BRAVADO

He was the smallest, that
is what drew you to him.
Still, he had a certain bravado
a serious strut to his walk.
Perhaps it was because
his father was there, a protector
in part, in another part a challenge.
He knew his mother was looking
so it became a matter of pride.
He could imagine himself
a father one day, his own children
trailing behind him threatening
to break away, knowing full well
they were not ready yet, needed
him for protection from
the always present predators.
That was life in the wetland
for most wading birds,
the only life he knew or wanted.

February 17, 2023

SAINTS AND SINNERS

I am a distant grandchild
of saints and Herod,
kings and lords, and
Visigoths for good measure.

That half of me is
woven of ever thinner
branches on a tree
that threatens to topple
from the lightness
of its other side, roots
deep in the rich soil
of Lithuania, the roots
hitting bedrock, and
the branches stunted
and there a simple
Ashkenazi Jew.

February 16, 2023

A MOMENT

It is 1952, April, and I
am handed to the woman.
I am wrapped in a thin blanket,
the tall man is standing beside her.
I do not recall this, but this
is how it must have happened,
she finally a mother, he
a father despite infertility.
I do not recall her, the woman
who perhaps never held me
once I exited her body, who
hid me for nine months.
I mourn her now, knowing
she acted out of love, with hope
for me, but only the headstone
is her touch on my hand.

First appeared in Constellations: A Journal of Poetry and Fiction, Volume 12, Fall 2022

February 15, 2023

GO TO YOUR ROOM

When a petulant child
acts out badly, a parent
will send the child
to a corner, to his room,
for a “time out”
the duration of which
depends on the child’s
offense and demeanor.

What are we to do
when the child has
no parents, answers
to no one, even his adult
children, where can we,
the observers go, what
can we do except cringe
in horror knowing this
child had the keys
to unleash a nuclear
holocaust, other than pray
that his until now silent
playmates awaken and
put him in a playpen until,
if ever, he grows up.

February 10, 2023

FINAL TEST

If he were graded solely
on effort, he would have
received a B+ but life doesn’t
allow such a narrow view.

He had no father, no model
so he stumbled through looking
at others, unsure which were right
which were botching the job.

He bought an ancient first
baseman’s glove from Goodwill
the only left-handed glove they had
and I taught him to use it.

When we went camping
with the Boy Scouts, he the new
Scoutmaster, we made sure
to build the fire and set up his tent.

He’s been gone almost
four years and I remember all
of the things he tried and
for those I still mourn him.

November 25, 2022

LISA, ONCE

A phone call, a lawyer’s clerk:
Can you tell me about Lisa Landesman?
I pause for that is a name I have
not heard in forty years, save
in a poem I once wrote,
now long forgotten.

She was my sister for two
or three weeks, adopted like I was,
and then Mike, my then father
dropped dead of a massive
heart attack and she was soon gone.

We were Federal adoptions, our
birthplace under Federal law, not
getting its own for two decades,
and her adoption wasn’t final so she
was re-placed and never replaced.

She won’t inherit as I will from
my cousin who died having no
siblings, spouse, children,
nieces or nephews, who left
no will, who left only kind memories.