The Letter, by Martha Cohen
I found it.
5 years after the death of the recipient - my mother
50 years after the death of the sender - a man I never knew, never met, never even heard of, named Johnny.
But then, how well did I really pay attention to my mother’s life
before I was born.
So I have it.
2 typewritten pages on soft yellowing papers,
3 hole punched, with 8 cents postage, mailed and received in September of 1960,
full of chatty references to common acquaintances, mention of children, a wife, life as a college professor
And it gradually dawns on me
that Johnny and my mom went to graduate school together and received their PhDs the same year,
long before I was born.
So why did she keep it?
A letter
she may or may not have replied to,
reminding her of past experiences,
from a friend who died eleven years after this correspondence —
Yes, I found his obituary on the Internet.
Johnny — was John McKee
in the psychology department at Berkeley
and suddenly,
my mother appears to me,
a young multi-dimensional person just beginning life
(in Iowa, so far from the coasts of my life)
achieving
accomplishing
actualizing
advancing
without any knowledge of the time
when I would be born.
Now why do I keep it?
Why do I hesitate to get rid of it?
A letter - which brings up a flutter of questions that will never be answered.
A letter - that conjures scenarios I will never be able to anchor in reality.
A letter with no real links to me, just a peek into the tantalizing puzzle
of my mother’s past.
*
Confessions of an Italophile, by Nancy Denig
Art started it –
Botticelli’s Birth of Venus
on our old barn wall
and a gay great uncle
speaking of Michelangelo.
Music? that, too –
lento, piano, adagio
ma non molto –
all delicious – even before
whistling Vivaldi.
How can anyone resist
comely workhorse words
like ciao and prego –
and the grand − chiaroscuro
and cognoscenti? Not I;
and I’ve yet to mention
pasta al dente, Dante,
Fellini, love of bambini
and − not least −
gorgeous guys on Vespas.
*
cum ci, cum ca, cum salve, by Austin Porter
my wife worries about her wrinkles I 'm looking old she says And so am I, so wrinkled Like a cracked ceiling in a sick ward all plaster dust and horse hair And so my herbicidal smile lacks reassurance and words disappoint as lips melt and teeth drop to earth like dried drabs of cum and where each drab falls a dead plant grows and vanishes poof Don't leave me…Don't leave this earth my less than perfect partner. The round world is uneven but around and gravity holds us tight.
*
Emerge and see, by Austin Porter
I felt panicked
when the surgeon
sliced your mother's bloodshot swollen belly
shoveled past the bubbling cauldron yellow fat,
spread her tight and twisted muscles
to reach her bloated restless womb
ensconced and writhing on her shit filled mattress bowels
where, among the fart sounds and the grunts,
with some flop flop and a shove,
the greasy, hairy, apogeal roan
both wanted and denied
exploding
innocence and guilt
emptiness and fill
with a grimace and a grin
interfering
interferon
you.
*
Skating on Sedgwick Street, by Sara Jonsberg
I sat on the next to bottom step, brick stairs reaching up to the garden behind me, and fixed the skates to my shoes key on a string around my neck hexagon hole to hexagon bolt – then took off down the sidewalk tw0 pigtails flying – kathunk, kathunk, over the cracks – never thought of tripping, didn’t care how fast I went – kathunk, kathunk, from the top of the block all the way down the avenue. Recalling it now gives me the chills but I was young then and fearless – Was I six or maybe seven? The war was over, the world was new, it was always summer – the sun was warm and the rush of air against my face spoke freedom and peace.
*
The Fire Next Time, by David Neelon
God gave Noah the rainbow sign
No more water, the fire next time
(from “Mary Don’t You Weep“, an African-American spiritual)
Rainbow stood for Covenant,
The terms of human life in God’s Creation.
No more water,
We could say was not another flood.
But no more water threatened punishment.
No more water was drought,
Dry seasons, crop failures, starvation…
Finally, the Fire next time.
We saw Hawaii when it was still like Paradise.
Nearly twenty years ago at a resort on Maui,
We walked the beach,
Looked out to sea where whales breached and spouted.
Now the beachfront is a pile of ash.
The resort hotel now tangled black rubble.
People from across the road fled from homes as Fire came,
Stood for hours in the ocean.
Air robbed of oxygen filled with smoke and ash.
Even standing in the water, they couldn’t breathe.
Time had come to burn down Paradise.
See the news pictures of flames as high as helicopters fly.
See forests explode in Fire, entire palm trees burst into flame as if they were bombed.
Before we came to Hawaii twenty years ago, we were in Japan, where, in our fathers’ time, the Fire came.
Another time, after a dry summer in Greece,
Fire raced uncontrolled through the peninsula south of Athens.
Tourists, we saw where legends say Odysseus sailed home from Troy.
This year Fires came near to Troy.
This year also, to France and Germany, to Africa.
Time and again, in our country, Fire burned California and Oregon.
Still burning is Canada.
Covenant broken everywhere, so many wars.
Drought. Starvation.
No more water. Fire this time.
*
Wedding, by Suzette Jones
When rain
sheets down into a desert garden,
when a glance
becomes a look
and eyes lock
into that visceral connection
that bonds two people
in the river running plunge
and toss of life,
when firelight shoots up
into the darkest mystery
that is the midnight sky
and there is dancing,
rhythms of earth rising
through feet and bones,
when a man’s hand
touches a women’s breast;
a woman’s hand touches a man’s lips,
then there is at once
a softening
and a spark electric
that radiates through all surrounding things
to create an opening;
a crack of entry for new life,
that flashes forward and backward
through generations.
*
Peonies and Irises, by Suzette Jones
The vase
dark green, rough pottery built
by hands from another century,
French, or perhaps Italian
Anchors the center of my kitchen table.
Petals already criss-cross
around its base: Festiva Maxima,
luminous white with hidden streaks
of crimson,
from peonies that came up each year
against the stone wall
of my grandmother’s garden.
She always set the vase
on a table in the hall
where I passed it at nose level,
enveloped
by its subtle scent.
A taller vase in the living room,
the same dark glaze,
pulled and shaped by similar hands,
held the blue old fashioned iris,
species that still broadcasts
the sweet, unbottleable smell,
crisscrossed out in modern cultivars
by hybridizers
looking for ruffled beards and pinkish shades.
Old blues in the iridescent
paintings of Van Gogh
still stood their ground
in my grandmother’s garden,
and now also in mine.
My mother gave me the choice:
I chose the vase for peonies,
she kept the one for irises,
but my grandmother lives on in both
our gardens where the two plants
read back and forth in time,
marking the month of June.
*
Tag Sale, by Ruthie Kosiorek
I took an inventory, discovered
I no longer want my
Worries and fears, they are on sale.
Look for the red dots.
My intolerance is cheap.
Republicans should arrive
Before 8:00 o’clock to get
The best deals.
There is a special offered
On my depression.
It comes with a glass
half-empty.
Unrealistic expectations –
The hell with them,
They’re free at the curbside
After 5 o’clock.
I ask nothing
Of you but to
Turn on your signals
While driving.
And also try
To work very hard
To make a
Peaceful green planet.
And perhaps you should
Send our sons and daughters
Home.
C.O.D. is fine with me.
I expect to make a profit
After my
Tag Sale.
*
Reading Room, by Ruthie Kosiorek
I’ve been reading a lot of Nordic noir
Those grisly books from lands afar,
With depressed detectives and murders galore
By creepy killers who need to settle a score.
The sleuths are all so weary and glum,
But they’re always brilliant and never dumb.
They all have problems with their personal lives,
With their husbands or brothers
And usually their wives.
There is always a murder, or two or three
In a small little town, so it’s plain to see
The villain runs rampant throughout the whole plot
And to the gallows he goes, when he’s caught.
I also love reading an Austen named Jane,
And going mad with a melancholy Dane.
But if you want a blood-curdling thrill,
And you think your spine needs an icy chill,
Then some Nordic noir is what you need.
Read a book by a Norwegian, Dane or Swede.
