THEN

There was a time when

The Oyster Creek girls

Had no quit in them.

They'd dance all night

With cowboys then 

Dance with each other 

On the way home.

ALBUM

To my mother’s 1940 autograph album

I have added my name. The old names

Wake and whisper to each other.

My grandfather, who circled “Dad:

Says “Who is this old man?

Why does he say he knows me?”

My aunt says “I’ve just learned script!

Surely my sister and I will forever

Love each other as we do now”

Someone has written upside down;

Someone always does. A friend signs herself

“Your wild Rose.” Another looks forward

To reading my mother’s first novel.

There is a list of class leaders; Shirley Stauber

Is most cheerful and most devil-may care;

My mother is wittiest. Her favorite books

Are Rebecca and Little Women. Her high school?

Thomas Jefferson. She intends to go

To the University of Southern California

And be a journalist. Her hero

Is her father who, over the years,

Fell from that position

MOTLEY

 Fourteen years old 

My mother's death

Dresses outlandishly

In primary colors

All of them 

At the same time.

My mother also

Liked such clothes 

ATTIRED

Fourteen years old 

My mother's death

Dresses outlandishly

In primary colors

All of them 

At the same time.

My mother also

Liked such clothes 

She and her death

Are much alike.

MEMORIAL BIRDS

 

When I tried to type the word gravestone

My tablet replaced it with grackle. Apparently 

I've mentioned grackles often enough 

That an algorithm judders to itself as I write

And issues me another. It's not worth fighting;

When my dead arise they'll push aside grackles 

Which have their names written on them.

CAST MEMBERS

 

The cathedral is levenloos -- lifeless

You and Macheath -- why Macheath?

Go in cautiously, pushing your way 

Through crowds of ghosts. 

Sukey Tawdry found Religion 

Hiding in an alley. It raised

One bony finger and nodded

Warning? Prayer? Prudently, 

She never told the Authorities.

Tiger Brown remembers

All of his past lives. He is cunning 

And ruthless but somehow

Can never avoid becoming

Chief of Police. 

Bob the Saw was made from the dust 

Under a carpenter's workbench

He'd like to thank his God, his parents,

His friends, his teachers  and his wife 

For this opportunity but won't.

GODMOTHER

My family somehow accumulates things

To which they've no natural claim. Thus,

My grandfather -- a Galician Jew --

Had a banshee, apparently left stranded 

In Lemberg when the troupe of dybbuks

For whom she'd worked went broke.

This odd facility probably explains 

My godmother, Alice, whom I've never met.

I know she had good handwriting;

I have somewhere the letter she wrote 

In pale blue ink congratulating me 

On being born. Her parents were Communists 

And she was a lawyer. Who better

To defend me in the Court of God 

Than an atheist attorney? Maybe

We'll finally meet in a celestial anteroom;

She'll shuffle papers, tskking over how graceless

Some of my sins were. I'll thank her

For her letter and for the silver spoon

She mailed from California. What baby 

Could doubt his own consequence 

When he owned a monogrammed spoon?

Perhaps the real reason I've always 

Liked Sam Johnson is that his mother

Also gave him a silver spoon. 

It said "Sam J." on it and though need 

Might make him put it in pawn 

He always, eventually, redeemed it.

BALLAST

I was the sort of kid who always

Had several rocks in my pockets

Over time I must have picked up

Quite a large number of them 

Carrying them about for a while 

Putting them in boxes or drawers 

Or releasing them into the wild

In a sheltered space so that 

They'd be safe from predators

And folks who think it a fair joke

To send a rock skipping back

Through the water it had escaped.

My sister's godmother once 

Brought me a stone she'd picked up

In Christ Church meadow. She said 

It would resent being called a rock.

Somehow, I now have two of them 

Each claiming it remembers Oxford.

IN THE BEGINNING

Loneliness 

Strikes a match. 

The idea of a dog

Moves uneasily. 

Loneliness says 

"Listen!"

Birdsong arrives 

Then birds.

WITHOUT WINGS

An abandoned donkey

Too worn for further abuse 

Lies in a shallow ditch.

Waiting in pain to die.

Rapid footsteps are heard

Kwanyin the merciful is running --

Running! -- down the road

Intent on bringing him comfort.

This is the sort of god I like.

The philosopher's unmoved mover

Or one of the "I'm omnipotent 

And couldn't care less" crowd

Wouldn't break into a slow trot

If my life -- as perhaps  it does -- 

Depended on their haste.

SEEING GUCKO

After my brother argued

With his imaginary friend Gucko,

The two of them agreed 

Not to believe in one another.

I've long known Gucko, of course,

And his quiet partner Fufu but

Had grown up without such friends 

Instead, I had a totem animal,

A bear who lived in the rotunda

Of Grant's Tomb. Occasionally,

Gucko and I have coffee together 

And he asks as if casually 

About my brother. I shrug, saying

"How should I know? These days 

He doesn't believe in me either."

MOURNERS

When he died our banshee 

Cried quietly. Lost dogs 

Remembered their homes.  

Angels with whom he'd flown 

Pretended errands demanded 

They walk rapidly by his house 

Their wings loosely folded.