91/395 : lineage and longing

Poland 1912

in her pale yellow dress
buttoned all the way up
the back of her neck
dumb-lipped
hand clenched
back spent
her tired beauty couldn't
buy her safety
her silenced creativity
saved no one
not even her husband
who was too afraid to
hand over his heart
to the earth of
golden potatoes
and gray skies
a simple soup
of sustenance


Baltimore 1962

the white notice tacked on to the
pale yellow door
of their humble row house
with ink letters so black
that everyone on Gorman Ave
could read the shame
from the sidewalk
Eviction Date: July 3rd.
my mother heard her father
cough plaster from his lungs
on the floor above
her closet-sized room
while her mother
took obsessively
to the broom
hush-dusting away
the truth that she could
do something
louder than tidying


Columbia 2002

the pale yellow wall unit
held the television set like
a shrine to trashy fantasy
everything a shade of
over-sized luxury
static pulsing a horror of anything poor
or peasant-like

over blasting celebrity gossip
my father chides complaints,
your mother still hasn't
paid me her check
we won't be able to make rent
this month

my mother like an angry
silent dove
holds up her middle finger
slams the bathroom door
and chokes back tears
in a mirror of
cloudy fear