What did she hear on the journey?
The flame’s roar consumed everything that could burn.
The soldier’s laughter made a mockery of joy.
Her mother’s voice would never again say the blessing for taking challah.
Her father’s whispers; the creak of the sodden ship; her silence.
At Ellis Island the raucous seagulls wheeled overhead and cawed.
You will find the house empty
Front door swinging on a rusted dream
Kitchen table cluttered with broken hopes
Furniture dusted with faded memories
Not mine but others
I did not take anything
I left nothing of value
I travel light
Not the applauded figure that everyone wants to hear.
There are enough of those,
And I do not have a good loud voice.
But the small person who lingers at the edges,
Picking up what the listeners leave behind.
The discarded flyers the illusions they wished to abandon.
The crumpled snack packages the food they found unnourishing.
The paper cups the empty dreams they hoped to fill.
Carefully I place these in the designated receptacle.
As I walk back to my room, I ponder them with a sigh and a quiet laugh.
This is a very good life.
Hands busy with chopping
Suddenly stopping, knife in midair
Hearing a soft voice murmur with laughter
Throwing the onions in a sizzing hot pan
A gnarled hand gentle on my face, and the words
Sweetness comes after tears
All these, and I’ve no family.
I want to shut my eyes, to cry.
I’m tired, wearied to my bones
By conversations where I’m thrown
Again and again
Against the concrete walls of your expectations.
I lay crumpled on the ground,
My grief purpled by darkening bruises.
The walls, once white, are bloody and stained.
Where do you look, when you turn away?
Beneath my skin, these
Earliest shadows
Decay dripping from ancient trees
Murk surfacing hidden bayous
Roil foretelling terrible storms
Bruises left indelible
Look away
Do not talk of such things
I was afraid
Words leave marks worse than fists
Icy stares make you bleed
New shadows differently hued
Stench fouling beach sands
Molder crumbling leather-bound books
Rapine cutting through pine forests
Invisible stains just as before
Look away
Do not talk of such things
I was afraid
Fists leave marks almost like words
Other people’s bodies make you bleed
Swallow your voice
Choke on grief
Cover your indigo body
One day when I speak
My power will shatter the world
Never these:
The antique brush that did not touch your hair
But always sat before your mirror.
The silver bracelet from your favorite aunt
That you wore to enhance your forbidding elegance.
The Mont Blanc pen you prized as a understated symbol
But found my question of “does it write well,” vulgar .
The gifts you bestowed cannot be touched
And are beyond compare:
A mind made razor-sharp
Honed against the whetstone of your obdurate distance.
A heart with hidden chambers
Filled to overflowing with a magpie’s assortment of kindnesses.
A language in which words become more beautiful
By the flow and tumble over your stony disregard.
So I thank you again and again.
The love I bear you remains my greatest burden, my greatest treasure.
My mother took me to a tea room.
She promised a special treat.
What kind of tea would it be?
Some tea brought from China, pressed into a cake,
Aged so that it was even older than I?
Some tea from Japan, fine-leafed and green,
Served in a cup more delicate than my dreams?
We entered into ordinary room that tried to make itself special
With cloying incense and scarf-draped lamps.
No other customers, for she had reserved the entirety of the hour.
The server poured us tea,
From a commonplace pot into commonplace cups.
She told us that we were to swirl it once
Then pour it out quickly into a bowl on the table.
A woman came and read our fortunes aloud,
Speaking with a fake Creole accent,
And made us each a taped recording.
I carried mine for years.
The taste of the tea I never drank lingers on my tongue.
always considering the worth of this
the energy effort expended in writing
transient ephemeral malleable
these words one thing to me the writer
quite another to you the reader
why should anyone want to bother
why should I
if we cannot even see our own faces
then what do we see in the words of another
the first cry.
not unnoticed.
I turned at the faint sound.
yet unheard.
I went back to preparing a meal.
the second cry.
heard and seen as what it was.
pain and a plea for help.
I caught her as she fell.
my heart fell with her.
she is my heart.
