Tag: poetry

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.