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Even Fish Feel
Pain
Parcel out your
mercies.
Keep the lobster pot
dry.
Shed tears for white
mice, blue
Foxes, and whales.
Add tufted streaks of
red and orange your grandparents saw
On the wing.
No more.
The shoals and
continental shelf
Keep quiet.
And the melting ice
cap.
Only little children
torment
By innocence. Tails
pulled. Wing torn.
The Yellow Leaf
1
There is always one
leaf clinging to a branch.
There is always another
bus,
Always a spider
diligent with its web.
There’s a mailbox and
always a fly.
2
But sometimes there is
Also the wind
That blows the leaf off
the branch.
The bus has no empty
seats.
The spider’s web is
bare
And there’s no letter
in the mailbox.
But there’s always that
fly.
How to wrap this up?
3
Have the branch of the
tree with one leaf clinging to it
Overhang the road
And brush the mirror of
the bus
As it passes, with no
empty seats.
A spider that no one
sees,
Sees no fly.
A mile away, a fly
lands
On the empty mailbox.
4
Meanwhile, spinning
yellow,
The leaf pirouettes
In the wind.
Hyperthyroidism
Every seat on the train
was taken
Except for the one next
to me.
Was it because I took
my shoes off
Or the fact that I put
all my mess
On the empty seat –
water bottle, sandwich--
Tuna, I think. A book I
didn’t like.
Behind me, a young
woman,
Coughing and sneezing,
Do germs move north or
south
And where am I?
Today you phoned and
accused
Me of not calling you.
I don’t care.
Your Sunday football
games bore me.
Your purpose in life
bores me.
So does your every day
eggs-over-easy.
So what if I go to bed
with you.
Only because I did once
- nine years ago.
You were different then
and liked opera.
Now your big belly jams
into mine.
It’s no fun, even with my legs up. |
Crime
Woolworth’s 5 & and 10
on the corner
of Broadway and 79th
Street,
now a discount clothing
store
with a bowling alley
upstairs.
I was eleven years old
and didn’t have a dime
to buy a Mars Bar.
Just wandering around
killing time
so I wouldn’t have to
go home
and face her.
Usually I went to the
library but
I had books overdue and
I was ashamed.
I’ll blurt it out, my
crime--
An open bag of potato
chips on the counter,
two or three loose just
lying there.
I wasn’t even hungry.
So I took one
then another.
Then a third.
I swear just three
salty, soggy potato
chips
worth about 1/50th
of a penny
haunts me for my
lengthy,
little, law-abiding
life.
Visitor
My mother was an only
child until I was ten.
Until the doorbell rang
and there he stood.
A giant of a man,
grinning
Till Mother slammed the
door shut in his face.
She didn’t want to tell
me who he was but I
Played hysterical and
began to tear my clothes.
“I’ll tell you this and
no more,” she said. “That man is my brother Alex.
He lives in a loony bin
where he belongs. He’s a skitso.
Often I wondered how
big was my uncle’s loony bin
And was I one, too, a
skitso? Was it something about
Being Jewish?
Mother turned into
silence.
Mother, all I ever
wanted was for you
To pull me on my sled
Up the hill in Central
Park
Over and over
Even in the springtime.
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