What Will I Do with You?

            for my mother

You forgot again

what I said minutes ago,

with no apology, just a huff &

willful desire to be and

do as you always have.

I understand. Really, I do.

I’ll be like

you someday—a stubborn

do-it-myself, done-no-wrong-

whatsoever woman. No bending

willow-like, no pleasing

without a reason or

with a smile.

I know you suffer.  What

will help? Nothing short of

your memory’s resurrection.

Whatever I try—phone calls, FaceTime,

doubling up on prayers—the trend is

downhill.  Learn to do

without, I say to myself, and ask

what you see out your window. Tell me.

I’ll hold the phone, press it to my ear to hear

you say: Looks like someone drew a line across a blank sheet of paper.

Willing this to be an end, fury

will overtake me someday. Never 

docile, our tongues whipsaw

your words, but I can’t see 

with your eyes, so tell me.

I can hear.  

What will I do without you?

(published in Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine)

After Months Missing The Crowded Subway

I want to go back to the crush close push press

of unfamiliar bodies, sweat stink and soft punch

of day-old powdery perfume, scent of strawberry

shampoo from someone’s still wet hair. I want

the lurch lean sharp stop, oh sorry, quick slide-slip

of hands making room on a metal pole for one more.

Would that I could feel a stranger’s lycra’d thigh

against me in an orange plastic seat. Oh yes, I’d praise

exploding gems on a screen, small victories

seen over a shoulder and wouldn’t even flinch

from an unlikely pinch.  Let my eyes

rove roam over a muscled bicep, inked blue

mute red serpent disappearing under the sleeve

of a black tee. I’d star gaze at nails bejeweled

in tropic brilliance then lose myself to the pink shell

of a girl’s ear, a nape’s shadowy curve. I’ll bypass my stop.

(published in Unearthed and A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic)

New Haven, 1963 

A triangle of sunlight

slashes my father’s face

and our shadow leaps forward.

It must be afternoon, late winter,

early spring.  Light hones itself

against the city’s brick, clarifying,

bleeding out to rose.  A church’s iron 

fence, arrows aimed at heaven. I am one,

maybe two months old, a rumple of blanket

pressed to his chest.  Nicotine-

stained fingers, spread wide as an octave,

hold me in place.  My father is showing 

me the world. I am oblivious, 

cocooned in cigarette smoke and 

the rhythm of his heartbeats. Outside 

the frame, mother slips the Instamatic

into her purse, waves a gloved hand,

and disappears.

(published in Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry)

Visual Grammar on the 72nd Street Subway Platform

We stand next to each other in proximity you & me a pear

& apple in some sallow still life lit by fluorescence you

twirl your earring snap your gum your backpack

the same color as the bubbles & flip-flops I bought

on a whim because every girl needs pink shoes

to step out & away in which you do & we move

into juxtaposition our surface differences highlighted

brown/white old/young hijab/Star of David & you

raise yourself up on your owes again & again in relevés

or out of boredom and I do the same

as my calves need muscle & we make the most

of our time waiting me behind you a superimposition

my face your veil but all appearances are veiled

with or without fabric & life’s repetition just might

become a reversal if you put on my flip-flops

& I slid into your red Nikes maybe we alter us

& thus the world

(published in Inkwell: Journal of The Manhattanville MFA Program)