Whither Thou Goest

Poetry Super Highway (Online) April 2012
(14th Annual Yom HaShoah--Holocaust Remembrance--Anthology)

Again the dream: the boxcar and the
long march. The camp. Last night, again,
selection and weeping. Ash in the air.

Don’t ask me why. Don’t ask me if
I miss someone I’ve never met, I
don’t. Except in dream, I was not

there to bear witness; was not there
at all. I don’t believe I’ve ever met
anyone who had to let their lover go

or let their father or their mother go
—I must have; must have met them,
but I can’t recall.

...........................This morning, though,
it seems I know them all. It seems I
stand beside them, waiting in long lines,

waiting in the cold on hard red ground,
surrounded by even harder faces, late
winter snow and traces of ash in the air.

Catching The Dalmatian

egg poetry (Online) April 2012

Just before he wakes up he reaches
for another jumbo shrimp. The cooler,
nearly depleted, is a mix of slushy bait
and warming beer. He snags one or
the other –he’s not sure which—
and wishes the odd lights at the bottom
of the dark pool weren’t so…what?
Hypnotic? Inviting? He sips his beer,
stabs another jumbo on the barbed
hook, flicks his ash and, with a flick
of wrist, casts the weighted bait.
A plop and a wait.
                            Half in the bag,
it’s hard to tell how long it takes
to finally sink to the bottom.
He’s had better days, he thinks;
he’d like to think that better days
are still ahead, but the bottom
of the pool beckons.
                               A sudden tug.
He jerks the rod to set the hook.
His head reels; “Dogfish,” he thinks,
“Or something worse,” and cuts it
loose. He lights another smoke,
reaches for another beer, watches
the neighbor’s spotted dog
squatting on his August lawn.