“Tribal art,”
says Marcia
her wrinkled face
etched with a forgotten sort
of kindness
“That’s what the archeologists
will say.”
Her consolation
to when
my sculpture
goes missing
and I think of
the archeologists
a thousand years from now
finding my piece
and thinking of it as such
some, as they age, grow bitter
like over ripe wine,
cousin Marcia,
grows sweeter
a walking keepsake in a moo-moo and house shoes
Time flips backward
Grandpa
I never met him
My mother’s green eyes well
when she speaks of him
“It’s time to hit the road!”
he’d say
and he’d go and
hit the road with a stick.
is this where I get
my sense of humor from?
the man had a monkey and
five kids and
a heart full of
meat, potatoes and
Chanukah candles
Flip forward
in the middle of
the 80’s
glowed, ***** and I
shared a room and belted out
Madonna songs
night and day
not even knowing yet
what a material girl really was
or if we’d ever be one
hope
took on a neon quality
that faded
like sharply lit days
of winter light
bent off snow
and sunk
into the hard frozen ground
never to be seen again