father

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 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 12, 2023

GOOD RIDDANCE

I still marvel at the way
the mind can rewrite
the narrative arc of memories,
taking away sharp edges,
eroding or erasing some
too painful to relive, and
bringing others out
from deep storage, some
largely forgotten, to be
battled with in dreams,
demons wrestled to submission.

In my dreams I have had
a final conversation with
my step-sibling, who
told me of my father’s
death in a text message,
who never delivered my
nominal share of either
parents estate, who made
it clear I did not matter,
and in the dream I
pronounced him
dead to me and buried him
in a place my memory
can and will not visit.

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.

January 13, 2023

DECLARATION

Someone declared it Star Wars Day, but that is not fair to the progenitors of that series of films and countless spinoffs. Imaging Captain Kirk engaged with a Klingon in a lightsaber battle, Mr. Spock standing by and commenting “illogical.”. And for that matter, why not imagine Gort looking down at Klaatu and saying, “No, I am your father.” On forty-second thought, let’s leave things as they are.

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.

August 12, 2022

SUNDAY MORNING

Every Sunday morning my parents,
usually my father at mother’s direction
would drive me the four blocks
to attend Sunday school.

I could easily have walked, a long
block and a half by cutting through yards,
but they were afraid of I have
absolutely no idea what.

My friends that weren’t there with me
were probably in church so
it wasn’t like I had anywhere else
I might go, anything else I could do.

I never asked why my parents were
so insistant I attend the school, they
knew I’d be Bar Mitzvahed with or
without the Sunday mornings,

and they were Jews only in the loosest
secular sense, and I was in those
awkward years and the only thing
else that came to mind, fed by

my father’s not so well hidden stash
of Playboy’s was too grim to imagine
and given how little they liked to be
around one another, could be rejected.

May 31, 2022

TREASURES

I keep in my pocket
all the treasures of my family,
all of the keepsakes from my mother,
and those from my father
given to me when they died.

I would share them with you,
but they are highly personal
and would not mean much to one
who never knew my parents
or my step brother, the one

with whom I have not spoken
since the text announcing
our father’s death, so I cherish
what I have in my pocket for
nothing was all I hoped for.

May 24, 2022

ORIGIN

I am told that I should write
about my origins, that is the stuff
that long poems are made of, or
rather the soil from which they bloom.

I have written about my birth mother
and visited her grave in West Virginia
seen those of my grandparents, met
a cousin, I’ve written all of that.

So its time to write about
my birth father, about the places
he was as a child, a young man,
where he is buried, dead long before

I discovered his existence, our link,
but I know nothing of Burlington,
or Camden and my passing knowledge
of New Jersey is limited
to Newark and its airport.

That is hardly the stuff of great poetry
or even mediocre memoir, so he
will be nothing more than a picture
of a gravestone in a national cemetery.

May 7, 2022

KP

My younger step-siblings had it easy
once our father made seriouis money,
for then my mother decided we needed
a live in housekeeper, one who
could cook, clean and take care
of all those things domestic.

So my siblings had only to put
their dishes near the sink,
their laundry down the chute,
and keep their rooms marginally tidy.

I had missed most of that when
I was their age and father kept
us afloat with nothing to spare,
so I knew how to wash dishes,
how to run a load of laundry,
skills that served me well when
Uncle Sam gave me KP duty,
and waist deep in dishes and pots
I imagined how my siblings
might fare in that situation
for I needed a good laugh then.