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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

REUNION

We used to be friends.

We met again yesterday.
Yes, the years had taken toll
in shifting shape, paler pallor,
gray gradation. No surprise.
What disappointed was what
was gone -- the banter,
the happy insults, the old
ease in each other's company.

We reminisced, of course.
It was expected.

We summarized our decades:
wives, children, jobs.
We stumbled into silence.
One of us saved us
 -- was it him or me? --
by saying we had to be going, had
to catch the plane or something,
sure was great we could get together,
got to do this again, hey, take it easy.
He -- or I -- said, as we used to,
that we would take it anyway
we could get it. We shook hands.

I wanted to weep.
We used to be friends.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

PHARAOH'S ARMY, ET AL.

When we came to the water's edge . . .
When we sat in the ICU waiting room . . .
When we learned the levees were breached . . .
When we were told we had to wear a yellow star . . .
When we set out on the Trail of Tears . . .
When we felt the walls shaking . . .
When we heard the baying hounds . . .
When we saw the bombers coming . . .
Then . . .

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY

It really had almost nothing to do
with me. I understood that nearly
from the first. Somehow his wife
had wormed it out of him, our liaisons
I mean. I hated her then for that
but now . . . well, time is healing
salve. Had I been in her place . . .
But that is neither here nor there.

The point is I was terrified. Oh,
not the stoning. I really never
thought that it would come to that.
It was the shame, ruin of everything
I was or hoped to be. My father would,
I knew, turn his back on me. And did.

Try to understand. Try to imagine
being snatched from lover's bed,
clutching cloth to cover your
trembling body, being dragged through
streets, then thrown like trash
before the one they called the rabbi.

I knew what they were up to.
I'd heard how they were out
to get him into trouble. Yes,
they used me as their bait.
Men are very good at that,
using us, I mean.

He knelt down then, acted
like he hadn't heard the charge
they brought against me, hadn't
heard their question put to him.

He fingered figures in the dust.
I wish that I could tell you what he wrote.
I cannot. Then he stood and faced them,
calm as an unfluttered flag.
He spoke and knelt again and wrote.

One by one they went away, eyes downcast,
faces sour and sullen. He rose and looked
me in the face. His eyes were bathed
in light. They spoke to me his sorrow,
not contempt. I wonder to this day
what he felt sorry for: for me, for those
who walked away, for all of us,
himself included? Some say when
he was hanging on the cross he prayed
forgiveness for the very ones who'd
hung him up to die. If so, I'm not surprised.
I'm not surprised at all.

(Published in the current issue - October 2012 - of MESSENGER magazine)

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

THE RACE

Ready       Set       Go
And she explodes into
the downhill dash to the house,
dark hair lifted from her head
by the breeze of her flight.
One Rule: I must give her the usual
head start commensurate with
a margin appropriate to a four-
year-old racing against
her father of thirty-five.
The distance between us narrows,
her arms and legs pump like pistons.
The finish line -- our driveway --
awaits a winner.  This time
she wins, or thinks she does.
I will let her revel in her victory,
knowing, as she does not, that
no matter who gets there first,
I win every time,
each and every time.