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RADIOACTIVE
I cannot say for certain which dayI became the familial isotope,but I know my parents beganaccreting neutrons not longafter their marriage, boundto their mutual core, unboundfrom me, adopted into the family,and I then became the isotopeof the family but remote,easily enough forgotten,when I was not present.That is, I suppose, one possiblefate for an isotope, it’s…
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FRIENDS
We will always be friends, we said,probably half meaning it at the time.How many times have we said thator somthing akin to it, knowingthat the promise to call, to stayin close touch, was at besthalf meant and almost certainnot to come to any reality. I have a catalog of friends, whoI told I would never…
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THEN, NOW
It was easier then, so let’sgo there, the spring of 1970,the location is less important,so long as it’s a coffee housewhere those barely old enoughto drink, or barely short of thatage congregate, waiting forsomething to happen or, Iseriously hoped, someone,someone with little hair, butwho carried James Joyce inhis jeans pocket, Portrait ofthe Artist the only…
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THREE MORE TRANSCRIPTS OF ENTRIES FROM THE TAPE RECORDED JOURNALS OF YETTA GOLDSTEIN
ENTRY: March 27, 1971 So, finally he’s here. Nine months, what God, another joke? Okay, she ate the damned apple, so stick it to the snake. But what would you know, another man. For six hours I’m lying there, dying from pain before the shmendrick walks in like some king, smiles at all the cutesy…
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MANUAL LABOR
(Instructions for Mourning a Marriage) It didn’t come with an instruction manual,no simple, poorly translated diagramstelling me to “be inserting Tab Ainto the Slot B,” none anywhere to be found.But I was young, and didn’t worry,despite entreaties to get help firstbefore beginning the intricate task of assembly.I laid out all of the parts carefullyuntil it…
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ANCIENT AMONG ANCIENTS
As we walked slowly through the Forumthe Coliseum receding into the lateafternoon, the Virgins stood patientlyas befits a priestess trained to avoidthe stares of passing men, even touristssuch as we were, the columns staringdown reminding us of our youth despite the birthdays that we celebratedwith the joy of togetherness, andthe nagging knowledge that we wereanother…
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ON ROMULUS
For years all I wanted was a working familial cloaking device. The kind the Romulans had in the early days of Star Fleet. It was easy to feel overwhelmed amid them, teaming together for holidays, reunions. I never could, I never did disappear though she felt my sometime silence oppressive. Now that I am part…
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Maximum Exposure
She carefully hangs her life on the tautly stretched line across her small back yard. A sun faded floral housedress a pair of bib overalls knees worn white on the kitchen linoleum, cracked and dingy. She waits patiently for Humphrey Bogart to arrive and carry her up the river of her memory. The chicken threatens…
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A SMALL PAIL OF TRUTH
The Good news about rom-coms is that Hollywood (and occasionally Paris, Lisbon and Madrid, but never Berlin) crank them out endlessly, and each contains that grain or two of truth, like salt rubbed in the wound of a failed first marriage, and the balm of the discovery of true and abiding love. The small pail…
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DO NOT FORWARD
I thought about sending you a postcard, one with the Riviera in the background or from Vieux Nice, with its teeming life, after all, we did have 30 years together. We never came here, I haven’t been back to the places we went together since they, like so much of what we shared, I left…
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an old writer and his words 