winter’s tale
three four blankets to keep warm
not the eternal furnace of long ago
remembrance flows through my veins
Marge graced all the years with me
hold her close rekindle the same fire
forever is the winter of our content
It is ten years
The tears have dried
But our poor hearts
Have not found
Their mend
So many memories
Captured
In the black crepe
Of your loss
Still slip back
In a moment
Of ease
Reminding us
Of how bright
Your star blazed
And how
We miss the light
Big, puffy flakes
Drift down like feathers
The wind tossing them
In a crazy zigzag pattern
Frozen confetti
Celebrating the cold
On the ground
An accumulated drift
The pure white sheet
Tucked clumsily
Like a small boy would
Make his bed
The gentle fall
Covering the road
Pure and innocent
In appearance
Hiding future hardships
In the quiet
Of the beauty
Of a morning snow
My old man bones
Ached this morning
I began
The fight with the cold
I took the ice scraper
Cringing from
The up-the-spine screech
As I scraped
Making a porthole
In the frost
My vision a squint
I drove slowly
Devoid of the total
View ahead
The heater
Spit out cold air
A swoosh of frigid
I had to endure
Until the blower
Picked up heat
It was a short drive
A trip to the grocery
To fill an empty larder
A casualty
Of holiday eating
I navigated the aisles
Choosing fruits and vegetables
A penance
For two weeks of gluttony
I left the warmth
Returning to my cold car
The weather
Making a short drive
A long way home
Time is a card shark
Stealing the chips of youth
Pilfering our ambitions
Bending our backs
And our will
Playing with sleight of hand
Where the aces
Are palmed
Leaving the deck
Full of simply survival cards
But we all
Have to play
Taking what
Is dealt
Just hoping for a trump
That will
Lengthen our stay
At the table
That man wears a mask every day
Don’t think he’s a clown
He does so for his little children
Now, can we say that
A mask is sometimes better than reality?
Four o’clock on a Florida morning
The car alone on a four lane
Finding its way home
Having heard heartbreaking news
The shock so great
The guilt
Of being gone
When I was needed
Rolled through my mind
Boyhood memories
Out of context
Played in a loop
In the silence
I wanted to holler out
To shout
My anger and anguish
Grief and sleeplessness
Mixed like oil and water
Grief over fatigue
The anchor
That held me
In a surreal world
The thought
Of what next?
How can I go on?
Death happens to others
But not to my mother
The woman
Who bottled her illness
Never allowing
It to keep her
From so many tasks
Milk of magnesia
Each morning
A stomach so raw
I could see her wince
When she thought
No one was looking
Knuckles that swelled
But did not keep
Her hands
From cold water
On her job
As a chore woman
She was invincible
My iron lady
But now dead
And all the gravity
Of this world
Bore down on me
Christmas and heartbreak
Came in the
Same misery package
Our Christmas tree
Fresh from the spoil banks
Of the pit
Great gaps
Reminding us all
That like the tree
Much was missing
From the season
I heard the exciting talk
Of classmates
Dwellers
On the Sears catalogue
Dog-eared reminders
That jarred Santa’s attention
I knew
Santa had stopped
At each house
But mine
On the block
That on the 26th
New bikes
Would ride my street
Gene Autry cowboy suits
And cap guns
Made my friends
Gene’s posse
And I
Would have nothing
Nothing again
But the misery
That dogged
My parents
But the worst
Was yet to come
The first day
Of school
With the teacher
Spending the morning
Grilling each student
Each recounting
The joys
Under the tree
And I would lie
With everyone
Knowing the truth
And I would hate myself
For the lie
I felt
I had to tell
My princess
Wears no tiara
Has no entourage
But makes my home
A palace
Any conversation
Feels like a royal audience
It takes no camera
To capture
Her tender heart
Her warm smile
The joy
Of her sparkling eyes
She is true
Without pretense
Without complications
And she reigns
In my heart
A black cloud
Hung over my birth home
No doctor available
The skills of a neighbor woman
Spare but effective
Another mouth
Added to four
He had trouble feeding
A broken down miner
His back
In a corset
In the other bed
My birth cry
Matched by
The desperate longing
Of my mother
2:30 did not provide
The only darkness
Lack of hope
Draped like crepe
Over the little house
On Lexington Avenue
Dad turned his head
Recognizing
His youngest son
Whose promise
For a future
Seemed no more
Than the son
He buried
But poverty
Breeds survivor skills
Ambition only
For the day
While tomorrow
Come with its own challenges
And so it was
An incubator of want
Devoid of pleasure
But somewhere
In the despair
We all
Found our way