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TIDAL SHIFTS
It’s difficult enough, Mom, that Inever got to meet you, to see your facesave in a college yearbook, to haveonly a few relatives acknowledgemy existence despite the DNA testthat clearly links us, one to the other.What makes it more difficult istrying to figure out my heritage,my geographic roots before our familyarrived in West Virginia, backin…
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FOYLES
Charing Cross Road booksellers woven amid theaters cramped sagging shelves an out of print Christine Evans, slim, collected works of those long forgotten never noticed a damp chill enfolds old leather as the door opens and shuts on a late February. Morning, my purchases sink in the plastic bag dancing as I walk to the…
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PASSING
He has been gone over a year and they need to erect the headstone before the first hard freeze, but it has rained for several days and the ground is too soft. Although I can still hear his cackling laugh he lingers less and his smell is slowly fading from the old bomber jacket. First…
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DISCOVERY
In a small storefront, in an older neighborhood of the city, I found it. Sepia coated with a fine sheen of dust and neglect, it lay on the table amid a stack of others, as though a leaf of phyllo in a poorly made stack fresh from the oven. I knew it as I looked…
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STORY: FRAGMENT ONE
“Look, I know it’s short notice, but I had to get away from the west coast. I was losing it so I threw my stuff into the van I bought and high-tailed it here.” “It’s not short notice, moron, it’s no notice at all. We aren’t even friends. Gloria’s my friend and according to her,…
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UNBEGUN STORY
There was supposed to be a cat in this story, one being chased by a dog. It could have been a fox, I suppose but they are not seen here that much anymore. It might well have been a crow chased by a hawk, that happens around here with fair regularity but writing about the sky is…
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TRIPTYCH
A triptych hangs in the gallery of memory. Admission is by invitation only. The first panel is a time fogged mirror into which I stare. The adopted image hides behind the tarnished silver. My adopted mother’s voice is heard from a hidden speaker: “You were named after my father.” I want to tape his picture…
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PIANO LESSONS
Mrs. Schwarting was my piano teacher. At 12, my parents gave me a choice of lessons: piano or dance. I had two left feet. I chose piano. It did not move. My mother smiled at my choice. She knew what my decision would be before she asked. My mother was like that. Mrs. Schwarting was…
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UNEQUINOX
A robin is slowly building her nest. She sits on one of the higher branches of our still winter-naked maple. She anxiously tucks small twigs, weaving the impenetrable. Each time I walk beneath she sits up and chides me. She is an expert in propriety. My lover and I walk down a rutted path, grasses…
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THE FINAL? TRANSCRIPTS OF ENTRIES FROM THE TAPE RECORDED JOURNALS OF YETTA GOLDSTEIN
ENTRY: March 23, 1992 Damn David, what was he thinking? I should be over at Shirley’s playing mah jongh, but no. Ma, you need some adventure in your life. Like I need hemorrhoids, I need this. Schvitzing like a fountain, I’m the queen of Mardi Gras. Who is he kidding? I’m a Jewish dishrag…
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an old writer and his words 