My poem, Memories, has just been published by MacQueens Quinterly. Here is the poem:

Memories

You have to train yourself,
for they are fading faster
than dime-store paint
in the Florida sun.

Surely, you know
what I mean.
How tightly your grandmother
would hold the cards

just dealt her.
How your mother’s right eye
would close each time
she smoked,

and how your father
would belt out
some silly song
just to celebrate sunshine

on a Brooklyn afternoon.
Remember how your brother
raced to rescue you—
a capeless superman,

taking the distance
between you and terror
like an Olympic sprinter.
A first smile

from the girl
you would marry,
and that last farewell
from an old friend.

It’s why we scribble
isn’t it—to hold
on to the leaves
of October

as they blow
back and forth
across the avenue
before the first snow.