Cruising

With volunteers she walked at night in Puerto Vallarta 
to search out babies selling sticks of gum or matches
for a few centavos.  Her friend wore a t-shirt stenciled
Protectors of Children; police walked behind.

The boys, sprites, and girls, wood nymphs aged eight to ten, 
catapulted into streets by penniless parents.  Desperate. 
Her friend lures los ninos to shelters; the police search
for the grownups. Warn them. Threaten them with jail. 

And ask if they need help so the children will not 
have to go into the night, risk kidnapping 
by sex-slavers, risk capture by organ-harvesters. 
Lose sleep and school.  Lose play.  To survive.

Her teacher had loaded her with books and papers to read
on vacation;  the thin Manifesto fit easily in her bag. 
She had hoped to meet someone on a Love Boat,
never suspected what she would learn in Puerto Vallarta. 
 

Sao Paolo

The sounds of Portuguese are soft 
As the air in Sao Paolo,
My stumbling attempt to shape these words
Are as a lover who stutters
With wonder and anticipation,
Ah!  But when you see Salvador,  they say,
You will love Salvador! As though
The street rhythms of this great city were nothing.

Sao Paolo was first published in Comrades
 

Visiting the Grave

My mother is dead, 
I cannot make amends
For the painful idiocies of my youth; 
if only I had not been so young!
I lived in the company of women
For so many years, the coffee klatch,
The mornings on the patio 
With Birdie,  Mrs McCauley, 
You were queen of the block and 
I brought out the tuna fish sandwiches,
showing off for the ladies; 
Favorite time was when you were ironing
And I played the piano on the Jello pretend-radio show,
I would move lima beans from one side to the other
As I counted scales and Czerny drills.
I was born to please you,
I was fragile, delicate, porcelain.

I don’t remember when I went into a rage,
Or became a sneak,
Or gave up on music and god
And only wanted to escape.
I don’t remember when the torture of mothers
Became my favorite pastime.
I knew I was killing you because you told me.
No matter.  I fled the murder scene. 
Now I remember your wicked laugh, your wicked tongue,
Your wit and pride and presence, your saltiness,
Your warmth , your love.
All this I fled.

I am astonished:  my daughters are so far away
Yet their love travels across land and sea;
After a lifetime of prose, 
I tell them of my poems, my new tattoo,
Their love conquers the bewilderment,
Maggie has reservations, I know,
And Anna has to see it before she makes her final judgment
On another iteration of their old man.
I am bursting with pride, an over-ripe melon,
My daughters, my daughters!  They are
Strong as Samson, smart as Solomon, beautiful as the sea. 
But they have never met this grandmother
Who died when she was just my age.

I have two granddaughters, 
One is sparkling bright wire,
The other a little blonde tank,
They bring light and intelligence 
To a world in sore need. 
Your tiny form would swell 
If you could see them!
You would balloon off to the heavens,
You would tell the neighbors for blocks around, 
Perhaps you would forgive me for my escape.
 

Only Last Spring

Seedpod drifts, circles,
seeks crack in concrete walkway.
Mind unleashed from moorings.

Midday sun,
high in the sky;
cool air,
flowering trees.
Forsythia is past --
purple the color of this stage.
Trees are dripping with life.
I hear the birds but 
the only other animals are the humans.
Someone hammering.
Someone vacuuming.
Cars with metallic colors slip by.

Degradation of language.
Lies.
Inappropriate words and actions.
Jacob’s hairy hand,
the trickster,
moving between classes, castes, creeds.
Versatile chameleon.
Long nights of story-telling and swapping lies.
Trading blows and lies.

“If you must eat pork,
let the fat drip from your beard,
curse your mother,
make your wife a slut.
Do not sprinkle bacon bits 
on your chicken Caesar salad.”

Fragments of the Afghan
stone Buddhas are being
sold to Western collectors.
 

Poets

In memory of Allen Ginsberg

Poets are lean and black-eyed,
have Irish shocks of hair 
streaked with gray;
they are bony with sharp faces,
their tweeds are old,
their shoes are sturdy for walking 
on moors or leas, or some damned thing.
They drink whisky – Scotch or Irish –
not the bourbon of novelists. 
Some are drug addicts, have pale skin, speak French;
others are ruddy and carry walking sticks,
and some hole up in attics in Amherst
or hang out in front of Lowell Tech,
dreaming unspeakable dreams.
I cannot be a poet because I look wrong,
sound wrong, am wrong and know it.
I am not of the people nor above them,
I am some crazy Jew who knows:
This is no way to make a living. 

Poets was first published in Poetry Bay