Poems

The Tyranny of Fresh Vegetables

The parsnips I bought eight days ago
are losing their erections,
I am responsible.

My tomatoes are bruised,
battered.
I am the abuser.

This spinach will never know
the sweet caress of my fragrant vinaigrette.
I am the murderer.

Oh God Oh God.
Every week it happens --
innocent cabbage sprouts,
broccoli spears, expensive asparagus,
artichokes, Japanese eggplant.

I make promises.
I try. I buy
woks, steamers, cookbooks,
more cookbooks, and still they die,
hundreds a year,
limp and impotent.
My compost heap,
neglected and scrawny.
The garbage bag, glad
and obscene.

I don't deserve to buy them.
I shouldn't be allowed to roam free
in the ripe and rampant produce section.

I must be punished.

Banished to frozen foods.

MATRYOSHKA

You’re like Russian nesting dolls.
I crack you each open and empty
Lie after lie. You look alike
But you don’t know who you are,
Only who I want you to be.

I search every vapid varnished face
For you, you—like a scent memory,
Wishful hearing. Diminishing you
Every look.

Until that last small wobbly doll
I can’t unscrew. The thumb-sized
Seamless orb of wood, the impervious
Smile.

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

Their mothers packed them little snacks
Carrots sticks and cracker jacks
Raincoats and cookies tucked in their knapsacks

Some were still groggy from the early morning rush
Others were as bouncy as the seats on the bus

The wheels on the bus went round and round
Until they stopped

Some were blown to bits
Some were in bigger pieces
Some were intact and dead

You’re wondering aren’t you
Maybe not out loud but you’d like to know
Were they Arab or Israeli

Say they are your children

Would that make it stop
Make it go
Round and round
Round and round

HEIRLOOMS

My family came over with nothing old.
Grandma included. All left behind
to thieves, dogs and death.

The ancestral hope chest was stamped
with German jeers. Fugitive memories
of murdered kith and kin are packed
away in mothball silence,
the most fragile pieces forever
locked up, not for restoration
by accent-free grand-children.

Yet each time I am handed down
a new part of the old story
I am amazed at how much
room there is to grow,
how empty the old box.

My mother escaped and I am trying to fill up this room.
The workmen leave, but it still smells
of gas in here.

MIXED BLESSING (For Mummy)

Inside your home
nothing is pure,
one hundred percent,
or unadulterated. No
matching curtains
and bedspreads, china
patterns, silver sets,
or coordinated stationary
allowed here.

Your closet’s one designer
dress rubs elbows with Schmattes
and your fridge is a shrine
to multiculturalism.

From your marvelous mutant
collages to your mongrel grandchildren
you have made your own cut and paste
wonderland—no passports, no requirements,
no exceptions, everyone welcome.