Libations

Snow beats against yellow shards of light

early morning January cold.  Beyond the black

mass of trees, dark river steams.  I meet you

here on steep cut banks, pour libations

red on white, frozen earth.  I meet you

dead father, meet your shadow before the sun

oozes gray light across the veiled sweep

of sky.  We are not shy to embrace, not ashamed

to weep here in the country of dreams. 

Our talk begins with speech of arms

lamenting emptiness, speech of hands and eyes

and tears.  Together we drink the strong red

wine you loved.  Your voice washes

against the deep cave of my ear where the small

boy lives.  We taste in the web

of morning, passing the bottle as if we could

sing like strong young men, defiant in the dark.

Lethe

On this side we meet, old friends

perhaps waiting in dust for the same train.

Waters trickle through layers of earth.

Here, on this side, we awake---

without cases or keys,

with no passports or tickets, with pockets

empty, with threads

drooping from cuffs and seams

groggy, heavy in the eyes

thirsty as if we had bodies alive

with sweat.  We know our deaths too well

to embrace and mingle vapor shades.

No wind to carry voices, no song.

We murmur, we slowly move our hands.

We open our fists with slow fingers creaking.

We make small gestures---

with our hands we bless and curse,

with hands protect our shadow-darkened faces.

We sit in small circles, heads bowed

low toward our knees.  Our hair trails

and sweeps.  We have drunk the waters

of Lethe.  Our memories unravel

like dreams.  We burn, each one

of us, small fires flickering at the core.

Infant Mortality

My father told me that he died

in infancy.  It happened like this:

in Czechoslovakia, where he was born

families of the upper‑middle class hired

peasant girls--new mothers-- to nurse

their children, hold and change and give

them suck, one peasant child, one little

master.  One day my father's wetnurse made

the great Czech dish, entree and sweet

desert in one, plum dumplings rolled

in melted butter, bread crumbs, sugar, hot

and tart and rich.  They bubbled up deliciously.

She didn't want to leave the babies out, fed

them dumplings as they gurgled, licked little

fingers, laughed.  But she forgot, in luscious

dough, the deadly pits.  A small one lodged

in my young father's throat.  He kicked and waved

his dumpling‑fat arms, reddened and choked

and died.  He died!  No happy ending

here-- my father died in infancy.  The girl,

terrified at having murdered her employer's

child, quick switched their jammies, made

substitution ‑‑ her healthy, screaming boy

for my dead father, my early-buried, unacknowledged

dad.  He told this as a curiosity, as one might speak

of troll's hair on the ears, or extra toes, how

he had died on dumplings sixty years ago, and not

surfaced from his tiny grave, his pit, till now.

To be continued...

Four a.m. and I'm awake

in faint green light, aware of a little

chill, a knuckle of pain radiating from under

my left shoulder.  Last time this happened

I nearly bent a window frame scrambling

out along the thin pole of moon

frozen to oak leaves and buried grass

in my front yard.  It's amazing

really, at my age, how well I climb

considering the cold, slippery surface

I clung to, shimmying half-naked

like a fireman caught in rewind

to the aching disk of moon.

I was a shadow, melted and absorbed

in her mother-of-pearl embrace.

But now the sky is dark and silent

the way appears down through the tunnel

of my self.  I can smell the bricks

of my old neighborhood--chalky, acrid red

crisscrossed with white cement, taste subtle

salt-blood pulsing in my heaving

throat  shadows fling stones

at me, I’m really scared, because some

hit and I can't see

who is doing this.  I am inflamed

with outrage  this is America  I think  you can't

call me dirty Jew my fists clenched and useless

muddy with sweat tears roaring in the hail

of so many rocks I am small, I am so

small and hiding in a bush wrapped tight in its painful leaves

You

They tell me it doesn't matter, in my poem

that "you" are my father.

Maybe I am not ready yet, they say, to identify "you."

Or "you" could be anyone-- a friend, a lover, God,

an earth spirit on a green park bench--

anyone I care about in some intense, personal way.

But they never saw you, fierce in the prison of your wheelchair,

screaming like someone lost in the woods, and darkness

dropping over the cliffs of sky.

It is you, father, your acid white hair burning

the air between us, your green, flaming eyes

and red-splotched, useless, swollen legs.

It is you Death rode down for all those years.

It is your face I see in the mirror, you who haunt my cheek-

bones, my eyes, your hair growing in my nostrils, on my ears,

along my back.  I am your troll

son, I am coming to you faster each year.

It is your shape in the garden I grow down

toward, your voice bulging in the back of my throat.

It is your fear I feel building inside me.

We have clung to each other every day since you passed

over into that black mystery.

Father, it is you I whisper to, it is you who have become my night.