The Day After

Share with me the gall of this day, fathers!
Feel the absence, part of your heart excised!

Just a day ago, Rebecca, singing,
Daddy, Daddy, I love Daddy
Erez shaving strokes to let me win
His big heart saying, "Make Daddy feel better."

I push them on the swing, higher, higher
No vision of shattered children fouls my spirit
They touch hands at the zenith as the chains go slack
Erez pirouettes, adding a noogie to his pendular path.

Planning a picnic for King Daddy, Crown Prince
And Princess, and kitties knighted, not benighted
We spend Monopoly money on Costco caviar, lox,
We leave with vitals, and a story to share.

The root beer float
Makes Erez beg for mercy
So his tank-topper
is water and a kiss.

Already the void in the casting of my soul
Opens, as I turn down HER street
Becca practices, "I love Mommy, right?"
Erez, silent, reads my heart.

Father's Day, an excuse-me holiday for men
Married, a month after the fete for the stay-at-home
Mother, witnesses the pain of the cast-off Dads,
Taken to the curb as we did for so long.

Let my words speak to the fullness of yesterday,
Tha the hole in my soul fill with love, not bitters.

Custody Hearing

void
mold filled with polymer
forces known only to math majors
break the consistency
bubbles form
air stronger than polyethylene
directs the filling of the mold

pocket
break in an avalanche
forces beyond the reach of math
make a ice wall
oxygen
air stronger than thunder
directs the treacherous white mass

voids
unseen objects in my breath
forces counting one Erez two Rebecca
Break the flow of breath of qi
Your Honor
Decree stronger than life itself
Direct my soul to flow ungapped by loss.

Dreams of Blood and Maggots

hello Serena
feeding remembered
only you care
purring echoes off close-in walls
round table morphs to irregular
polygon of papers homeless items.
Meds among themaybe

dreams of blood and maggots
cat food isn't kosher
Nor the mouse you laid on my pillow
but Thank You, Hero Cat
ramen noodles cereal safe once more

scraps scream ignored from indoor-outdoor carpet
milk spills on kitchen floor
this poem is written bills unpaid
mop stands like advice ignored

The Value of a Marriage

We hovered over the change dish
Cash-4-Gold pouch in my right hand
His jet black hair thrusts upward in my left
Resting the envelope ready
I lift the shiny band
My sigh weighs twelve years

He asked me what is that Daddy
My wedding ring
What does it say
"Dimitikh ra'ayati," My love, I dreamed of you
What are you gonna do with it
I think I'm gonna sell it

His doe eyes moistened
His plea heard not said
You won't lose it I could use the money for the rent
No Daddy never
The rent was late
He keeps the ring under his pillow

Metaphor

Crystalline sparkle from twin blue sapphires
Skates glistening figures on my icy soul.
An unweighted plumb line in a wind storm of self doubt
I dreamed of an hourglass taking its sand from Sea Isle City.

One date in March, one date, the music critic from Rolling Stone
Told her friend how to play his guitar.
She loved him anyway.
A sandcastle half as big as the beach
Queues up to fill the hourglass.

A serpent coils dreamily, deep in his abdomen.
Bright, orange flame shadows the deep ruby scales.
Her breath whistles through his soul, making the snake
Alive and happy.
His, hers, whispering, knowing.

To all things (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
Orderly and with patience, the grains of sand begin
Their inexorable crawl downward;

One, two, three grains of life;
One, two, three grains of love.
Happiness felt in the soul cannot be held in the hand.

First maintaining two separate forms
The fields under our feet furrow as we pass, and pass, and pass again.
Some stroll by oblique to the congruent rows we plough.
The day is done.

The equipment sleeps, the drivers vanish.
We climb from our furrows.
His words, her words, his breath, her breath,
Dazzling orange heat, endless ruby scales,
One cannot be distinguished from the other.
One grain of sand squeezes through the hourglass, then another…

The autumn winds reach to Sea Isle City
A sandcastle dances in the Indian summer breeze,
Spread between the toes of children enjoying one last weekend.
Sun beats on the hourglass, now dripping naked.
The sunshine teaches the sand,
Once stoically guarding the hourglass behind castle walls,
To dance, flexible and free.

Two rivers become one.
Why is this metaphor a lie?
Why does the Ohio swirl so much harder?
Why does the sand flow faster as each crystal
Becomes a more practiced dancer?

Cruel words train the dancers.
We destroy.
They pirouette, always downward.
The finely honed edges of lovers’
Words draw blood on impact.
I can almost see through the hourglass.

It all depends on you, final grain of sand.
Flow through as every skillful dancer before you.
The hourglass is empty.
Contort, spread, resist.
Claim the stage. Do not yield.
The performance has not ended
Until the final dancer struts and frets across the stage,
Signifying nothing - nothing remaining.
Two lives, begun in grace, are all but over.

February 2008, revised June 28, 2009