Poetry
THE INHERITANCE
Just a grapefruit
but it never fails
to make the word Mama
when I cut it
store the half uneaten
flat against a plate
pink meat down
so that tomorrow
when I eat it it's as juicy
as today. Washing fruit
she taught us but never this.
She just did it. Saved
the fruit against the plate.
As I do. As I saw it done
in my daughter's house this morning.
published in
Calyx
GOLD STAR GIRL
My job is to live. Like Isaac
named for laughter.
Not Job’s job, up to his ears
in death. Tragedy
my mother knew when she lost
her first child; then I knew
she would die if I did—
so I didn’t. My job is to live.
This year I’m seventy-five. Good job,
Mama’d say, if she were here.
I hear it anyway. And soon
I will have to let her down.
Well, I must face it. Without
the comedy of an afterlife
there’s only dying. How do I
find the mettle to give myself
to the violation? run wild? bear left?
You see what I’m up against.
published in Speaking for my Self, Chicory Blue Press
THESE ARE THE PEARLS
It’s "Besame Mucho" coming through
revolving doors. It’s 2018, the future
far from songs we danced to
left inside me. A waiter stands
to take my order
O waiter,
bring me fresh plums on a plate.
He’d refuse to eat. Patiently,
his caretaker urged, “We want you
to be well; if you won’t eat, she’ll kill me.”
He smiled, “Then we’ll have to go to your funeral.”
He could do that— Southern charmer
to the end.
To find him open the kitchen cabinet:
Coca-Cola, a bag of Cheetos,
the salt inside the shaker he would fill;
a half jar of Skippy peanut butter
still intact. I don’t want it.
It’s more than I can fathom!--
the whole of the kitchen. The future
filled with Besame Mucho and blintzes
he stored in the freezer.
Thaw little pancakes . . .
Flicker flicker . . .
I am speaking of his flashlights in the drawer.