Stevie's Law

I’ve fallen way behind. This was published in The Evening Street Review a month or so ago.

Strondes

When we were eight

Eddie and I

would ride our bikes

to Canarsie Pier.

It was before the landfill

in Jamaica Bay

made for reluctant breathing,

and even before we understood

why our older brothers

would steer their girlfriends

there on weekends to watch

the submarine races.

We’d do a little fishing

off the pier,

but the first thing Eddie

always did was wave

to his dad

on the coast of France.

He swore he could

see him waving back.

Eddie never knew

the man—a Marine

who died as the first wave

struggled toward Omaha Beach.

Before that last winter

we would meet

every now and again

and Eddie would

always wave,

as if he felt the same

at 80 as he had at eight.

In fact, he told me once

he could see his dad

more clearly as he aged.

Today, on my way to Kennedy

I dropped off the Parkway

to meet with Eddie Junior

at the pier.

He’s an image

of his dad at 40.

He was waving

when I drove in,

his three kids were waving,

and when I joined them

it seemed the whole

world was waving.

“See your Grandad?”

I asked the brood.

“Yup,” they replied as one.

“Me too,” I thought, as eight year-

old Eddie, clear as a clockface,

waved from that distant shore.

My poem, Mom, is in Issue 9 of call me [ ]—call me [ when you get home] . U of Alabama Creative Writing. Here is the poem:

Mom

lived to 97
on “curl your hair”coffee
and a carton of smokes a week.

She ate eggs with butter
and bacon and bagels
and rye bread smeared

with chicken fat.
The cakes she bought
were so packed

with calories
they bulged
in their boxes.

She’d have thought you
nuts for substituting
yogurt for ice cream.

Mom avoided doctors
having been shown
by her mother

that chicken soup—
with matzoh balls
could cure most anything.

She thought the Olive Garden
the height of luxury
and beamed like the Queen

of Persia
over a plate of spaghetti
and glass of red wine.

A house full of cousins
and a deck of cards
was her idea of heaven.

They’d play penny poker
for hours—weaving mythic
stories through the smoke.

My poem, Colt 45, is in the current issue of Sheila-Na-Gig. Here is the poem:

Colt 45

At six,
I shed baby teeth
so regularly
I whistled
with every word.

The third week
of first grade
we had
show-and-tell
and the local ragamuffins,

captive in their Sunday best,
brought boxes and paper bags
and a pillowcase or two—
some with moving parts
that mewed or whined

or chirped.
I brought my brother’s
pistol—the one he hid
behind the tenement steps
that led to the basement.

To get it in my lunch box,
I had to squash
my PB&J and banana.
And it was heavy—
it took all my strength

to lug it across the boulevard
and up the stairs
to the classroom.
I sat behind three lucky
charms and a two-headed

nickel.
When I took the pistol out—
the room went dead
silent—a silence
I had never heard before

or since.
And then the room erupted.
Later that day,
I learned a long word:
Consequences.

My poem, Goodbye to all that, is in the current issue of Moria Literary Magazine (Woodbury University). Here is the poem:

Goodbye to All That

Yesterday
a poppy
I planted years ago
bloomed cream and crimson.

Stunning in its regal robes
it lorded over the roses—
golden goddesses.
But only for a day.

This garden has given
a million hours of pleasure.
Really, what is there to life?
Dirt and sweat

and muscles that ache
with honest effort.
Moving now
to a small apartment

for the golden years,
I will turn
the keys over
to a young couple

with kids and careers
and no time
for gardens.
I might have sold in winter,

but that would be cowardly.
I sit in my lawn chair
one last evening
and try to explain.

This is in the December issue of Pennsylvania’s Poetic Voices. Close as I get to truth.

Tulips

If I declared myself
an optimist,
my friends would laugh
their way to
cracked ribs.

And yet,
I spent all afternoon
planting tulip bulbs
in the barely
yielding soil.

What can be
more optimistic
than planting bulbs
on the threshold
of winter.

Imagining the first
fine day in March
will carry me
through February—
take the edge off the wind

til the sun warms
my face,
and I patrol
the flower beds
looking for that first green.

My poem, Coffee Shop, is in the current issue of Pirene’s Fountain (15,issue 23). Here is the poems.

Coffee Shop

It was not a hangout
for either of us,
just a coffee shop
half a block from First National,
a place to get out of the weather.

When the heat wave broke,
the storm came in like Man o’ War.
I remember my first thought
on seeing her—“Am I that wet?”
But she recognized me right off,
as if age and gravity
had not had their way.

Everyone thought we would marry,
but we had blown apart
the summer the cities burned,
the year Vietnam
was a nightmare for the wide awake.

Conversation stalled—
after all,
what was I to make
of her—
a woman now
whom I would never know?

We accept the ravages of time
a mirror presents,
but what of the gulfs
engendered?

The rain stopped.
We went our separate ways.
Tonight, I would scan the old memories
like watching reruns of a favorite show
canceled for reasons lost long ago.
 

My poem, In the Distance, is in the current issue of The Big Windows Review. Here is the poem:

In the Distance

We speak so
seldom now—
phone shy
since childhood

and the miles
between us
seem to multiply
with the years.

Remember
when
each new
day

greeted us
like
a garden gate
opening?

When did
the highway
become a gravel
path?

Last night.
I thought
of that day
we had to hide

your father’s
car keys.
His daily descent
into dementia.

I take the top
down
on the old
Triumph Spitfire,

kick the
tires for luck,
and head your way
on the open road

My poem, What the Old Want, is up on the Bluebird Word. Fun one to write.

Not much—
friends
and family
I suppose—
for short visits
involving meals
at restaurants
with tablecloths,
or something sumptuous
simmered for hours
over a low flame.

How about a week
without a visit
to a doctor
or a single
medical test.
No MRI or EKG
or CAT scan,
or even
a tube of blood
with my name
in magic marker.

Time
is in free fall.
Like riding
an elevator
held by a single
strand of steel
down from
the 93rd floor.
Bring kindness.

And, when all
else fails,
a recliner—
well worn
in all the right
spots.
A coffee
straight up
and the book
I loved best when
I was young.

I have two poems in the current issue of Evening Street Review, number 35, Autumn 2012. Here is the first:

Brothers

That was the summer
it wouldn’t stop raining.

The summer my brother
and I discovered

tropical fish
in a shop on Hegeman Avenue

behind the cats and dogs,
parakeets and gerbils.

The summer we watched
in black and white

as whole provinces
became watery graves

and forests
lost their footing

in countries with strange-
sounding names—

so far away
we had not yet gotten round

to bombing them.
It was the summer

we bought a fish tank
with pooled resources

and guppies, tetras, and angel fish,
and Congress passed

The Tonkin Gulf Resolution.
The summer we discovered Siamese

fighting fish and the war
between North and South

Vietnam was as certain
as the rain.

The summer the Bettas built bubble nests
and tore each other to pieces

and my brother packed
a duffel and went off in the rain.

My poem, Remember, is in the current issue of Rat’s Ass Review. Here is the poem:

REMEMBER

Sky more brown than blue
like Kansas
before Dorothy was whisked away.

Remember when they
came for him
and you learned
the damage stones could do?

Air so heavy
it hits
you like a headline.

Remember when they
came for her
and you first heard
a whip snap?

The ground trembles
as if rehearsing
a disaster movie.

Remember when they
came for them
and you learned
a new word—noose?

Blue-black and brown
of dried blood
painful even to the eye.

Remember when they
came for you
fine people,
lock stepped,

tiki torches on high,
drum beat louder
than anger?

You will, you will.