• ILL SUITED

    My father wanted to takeme to buy my first suit, saidhe knew a tailor who couldfashion one perfect formy pending Bar Mitzvah,a nice wool blend, he said. Mother about threw a fit.“Take him to the departmentstore or even Goodwill,for God’s sake, he’s onlygoing to wear it once.” My father had learnedthat some battles are bestleft…


  • TAILORING

    My adoptivegrandfather could take bitsof cloth, a needle, threadand with magiclygnarled fingerscreate a garmentfit for royalty, to be wornby the old womanliving in the walkup down the street. I take wordsbits of ideasand hope,and with manicured fingerscreate whatI can only hopepasses for poetryto be ignoredby thoseliving nearbyin my suburb.


  • HANGING BY A THREAD

    In Riga, my grandfather was a master tailor, the great and the rich would come to his shop some bringing bolts of fine cloth and others trusting him knowing that wools and silks were not beyond his reach. Even after they marked his home as that of the Jew, the Captain, who rode through the…