Trains From Prague


In evening’s glow, in the warm room,
my mother’s eyes went dreamlike

and she spoke of her dreams, of Tomas, 
whom she hadn’t seen for twenty years 

and Lisle, his green, jealous wife, who 
wore her hatred like a crown, whose eyes 

glowed like campfire stones.  Her words 
drifted on the surface of the wind.  

In the dream, she asked Tomas what made 
Lisle so angry.  “Well,” he answered, you know…”

My father’s eyes were amber as the Scotch 
he sipped and he spoke of trains from Prague 

to Brno and the fine meal he could buy for five 
crowns, including glasses of the Czech beer 

he loved, with white radishes on the table 
to induce his thirst, and the broth of his languages 

in every car.  I was too young to see them 
drowning in the misery of their memory pools, 

each tearing words rooted in bottom mud 
that fluttered and floated like rough, green 

weeds tangled in those hidden alphabets
marking the borders of the lives they understood.





Kitchen Song


My mother fussed
in the kitchen, worried

about which way the knives
were facing, hated

how I wiggled my legs
and held my fork too low.

Once, she stared out
at barb wire. Her mother

was dead — a skeleton
in rags.  Later, when the dying

was over, my mother remembered
how to dance, but she 

seethed, a cauldron of rage
bubbling over onto our kitchen floor.





At Ninety-Seven


I know
your ears are nearly useless now
eyes clouding over 
with glaucoma, your stammering 
voice barely above a whisper

but 
when I see old pictures
of you at the beach, squinting
at the camera, blue-black hair
shining in the sun, defying the death 
that would have claimed you

in the camps all those years ago
your ancient fierceness clamps my heart.