Frederick Feirstein Verse-Virtual 2017 February

February 2017

I've been a practicing psychoanalyst since l984 and have been publishing case studies that read like short stories for years in places like The Psychoanalytic Review and The Partisan Review. For the past few years I've been meaning to publish a jargon-free book for the general public: The Man In The BMW and Other Psychoanalytic Stories but each time I'm ready to tie them all together I get waylaid by theater. Or a new book of poems. Finally my wife, Linda, and I are going to finish the book of ten "stories." If you're interested you can find the Man In The BMW on Google.

Twentieth Century

A winter evening under a John Sloan El.
Fedoras tilt in unison against the wind.
The pink neon lights of a Polish bar
Invite Grandpa in, while my son
Does pushups on rug, and I chin
In my mother's kitchen, and my uncle
Argues he could beat Willie Pep
If Grandpa would let him turn pro. I burn
In his disappointment, forty years ago.
Now Grandpa comes brawling into street
And, arm-weary, staggers home on schnapps
And sits me down to watch Sugar Ray dance
Till he turns into Counting Crows, and my son
In my uncle's pecks flexes in the window
Where stenos in thin coats huddle against the snow.
One of them my mother, seeing my unborn face
In a taxi, hails it and rushes home.

(FALLOUT)

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