POEM: 'Framework'
Old pictures of us
on white staircase walls,
lined diagonally upward
in little wood frames,
lecture us on choices
we have made since
they were taken —
POEM: 'On the Machine'
my grandmother did not change
my grandfather’s greeting,
so his voice ripened my sadness
before the tone.
POEM: 'Late for Work'
so I tell the man
behind the coffee counter
a made up name,
not my Hebrew name,
which requires gentiles
to practice heavy sounds
of machine gun fire
at the back of the throat
before they get it right.