Category: Poetry for mojo 18

He smashed rats that nibbled
                                               rotting eggs
Near the oozing Hudson,
while tradesmen
Tossed the slimy crates into waiting trucks

His father wore zoot suits,
                                               gambled Fridays
The market slid nearer the Hudson sludge
His mother buried the family bonds in the grit of stockyards

He dreamed of making speeches to
                                               the frenzied tradesmen
ate the cat’s remains
In a warping shell, he wobbled down the family’s collapse

Until the suits were gone and Father
                                               dropped on the cool subway
While the eggs decayed, and mother
wailed Hungarian solaces
So, he became a farmer, and the tradesmen
Heard only excerpts from his complete speeches.

The apple in the palm of my hand is
Nothing like the apples in my crazy

Head, going back to the bitter tastes of
Childhood, the apple vinegar of pain

And the rotten apples of old angers
Going back to the root of every—

Thing, the abuse in Brooklyn, in the house
And outside the house on the street, apples

In a paper bag, bought from a horse-drawn
Cart, these vivid memories are as if

Nothing compared to the apples of rage.
The apples of never-again, of no

Forgiveness, apples of merciless tears,
The torn curtain flapping out the window.

Now to saturate my wool socks in mud.
How lucky we are for radiator heat. Safe
as a goat on a bicycle: click, click, click,
we fall into the gallant night.

No medicine for the sagging raspberries.
No guttural spit to mend the gnawed hibiscus leaves.
Let the cattle to the meadow, the fawn to a tired copse of fir trees.

Now I’m left with nothing but the callouses on my feet.
When we slice the egg sack open, I see maggots in the caviar brine.
But the fatty tissue of fish gut has moisturizing properties,
and we always have a fresh cotton towel for mopping up.

This time, it’s my father in the hospital
choosing to believe he’s in a hotel
waiting for a better room.

He knows he’s waiting, and he knows
he doesn’t have his key. The rest is jazz.                                                                  

He used to sing Cole Porter. Half-deaf, he mumbles
his favorite in the still of the night. I sing for him  
like the moon growing dim on the rim of a hill.                    

Perhaps at 88 he has become his kindest self.                       
On the phone, he asks about weather and my cat.     

I spill my lifelong secret. I love you.
He replies. Thank you for calling.                             

While he has surgery, I head for my university.
Find myself at the dump.
Turn left on red lights.

Metastasized. Shunt. Cardiac. Comfortable.             
His room phone rings and rings.                   

Next day—relief to hear his voice. He tells me
what he has for lunch. Things in a cup, things
on a spoon, and things you don’t like and ignore.