Arms

My mind bends to the ground

like the wind whipped branches

of a willow

scraping where they will dig

to lay the bones

of little children

who never danced

at a prom in the light

of the moon

Who never laid

in a lover’s arms

under the stars

that claimed

“This is your day”

What evil have they been spared

that could have rivaled

what blew their lives

to pieces

A timeless violence

so horrid

that we look away

like the townspeople of Dachau

even though we smell

their bodies burning

and dust their ashes

from our well-shod feet

Three dozen

little arms

snapped in two

like twigs

of brittle lack

of understanding

I long to wrap my arms

around my grown manchild

and my two little women …

three angels still winging

past the rubble

of so many other lives

Copyright 2012

REMembering

Tired and hungry

but too early

for dinner in Italy.

On our plates

Korean dumplings.

The pungent

aroma of Kimchee.

On the streets outside

women of Milano

wafts of Parisian perfume.

In her heart

Geneva and Harrisburg.

All that defies

geography and time.

Copyright 2012

The Breakup

I can’t be your friend anymore

I said

clenching my jaw which

I’m painfully learning

in some cases

is better than biting my tongue

I’m sorry, I said, though really,

at this moment, I’m not

But I can’t be your friend anymore,

because you refuse to hear me

when I say I cannot

keep storing your king size bed

in the  tiny urban apartment

that I now share

with my boyfriend

and besides 

keeping it this long

was never the deal

Now that sounds just silly

but it’s not.

Our friendship

began when our parents

would lovingly lay us down on their

king size beds in one another’s houses

so they could share dinner and laughter downstairs

and we would creep like burglars to the top of the stairs

to eavesdrop and giggle and imagine what

it’s like to

be a grown-up

The thing is

if she cannot even try to picture

what my apartment looks like right now

then she isn’t even trying

to imagine

the grown-up me

Copyright September 2012

Remember

I. 

Some say,

When you find yourself

in darkness,

remember, it’s your choice.

 

I say,

What planet

can resist rotation?

 

How quickly

earth revolves

day into night. 

II. 

Memories must be mined

and stoked like coals

 

No use are they

hidden deep within the earth

we all become

 

Perhaps they’re right that

if we wake before the dawn

we will remember

all it lights.

 

III. 

Oswiecim

is one of many

Polish names

for murder

by no choice of

my foremothers.

 

Here burned innocence

stoking absence

scorched into the soil.

 

And yet the sun still rises

over fields of

hopeful cornflowers

 

So very long I’ve remembered

this particular darkness

in which I never lived. 

 

IV. 

So finally one morning

I inhaled beauty

like they in all

that dust did faith

My arms outstretched,

hope rising from city streets,

wires slicing through
a tentative prayer. 

 

V. 

Perhaps the answer,

is so simple: 

Speak love

in any language

no matter what

the time of day. 

And yes,

even when it must

be whispered.

 

 

 

Copyright September 2012