I am a retired professor of French, living in New York City, taking painting lessons, and writing. This year I was pleased to have two books published by small presses: The Unknowing Muse (Dos Madres, 2014) and Wars Don’t Happen Anymore (Deerbrook Editions, 2015). 

Sins of the Grandmothers 


Like Grandma used to make,
was said of a good cake.
It makes me laugh to think
of Grace, my mother’s mother,
who made others make
the meals and beds
while she made bets
on Baccarat, and gazed
through the plain
glass lens of her lorgnette.

For her only daughter
she made scenes, fainting
whenever the younger
woman went out
on the arm of an admirer.
(That I and my brother
were ever born is a wonder!)

The daughter was kind
to the end, through illness
and debt. I too forgive 
my grandmother’s harms,
all but the ones done

to puffins. They came
every summer from the ocean
to nurture their young
on a rugged Maine island
where they were hunted
almost to extinction
by men who stole
their feathers, made hats,
and sold them to Grace,
my mother’s mother.