ON MY MOTHER'S BIRTHDAY

A milk bottle and a spoon;

Some keys, each with a name;

Spools his father brought home –

All these riches my young father had

As well as two Big Little books:

Popeye and Terry and the Pirates.

My mother? Brass miniatures:

Candlesticks, wine bottles,

A cocktail shaker (this seems odd),

Glasses, and a mortar and pestle.

She probably had a doll but this

I never heard about. Brooklyn children

He played stickball and nine o’cat;

She jumped rope. When a plane flew by

The streets filled with people looking up.

Older, she saw two movies every Saturday

And could remember every one of them.

He saw God once, but later wondered

If this was really so. When I try to think

Of one of them, the other comes too.