February 2017
Judy Kronenfeld
judy.kronenfeld@ucr.edu
A long-ago transplanted New Yorker, I live with my husband in Riverside, California, when we are not visiting children and grandchildren on the East coast or in more far-flung places. Retired from teaching in the Department of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside, I volunteer for a local literary arts nonprofit, help edit the online magazine, Poemeleon, and write poems, nonfiction and the occasional story — as much or as little as the days invite. My fourth full-length collection of poetry, Bird Flying through the Banquet, is due out from FutureCycle Press in the spring of 2017. For more information, and a selection of my poems and prose, please see http://judykronenfeld.com

Listen


What I need to say
may be faint
as a rustle high
in the feathery bamboo,
though I want to sound
bold as the stalks’ off-beat
rhythm sticks in the wind. 

I know I fling silence
over my shoulder,
as I turn away, 

tired of your glance— 

brief as a bird’s
before your attention
flies off— 

or vague— 
as if I were clouds
gliding by.
 
Let your eyes rest
on my face.  Arrest me
in turn. I will burst
from the seed 
of myself.  

Originally published in West Trestle Review, Issue Number Two, Volume Two (October 2015-January 2016).

 


Bread

                
Even the packaged kind— 
twisty tie untwisted— 
sends up its yeasty plume
to the nose, its celebration
of morning hunger...

and I think of truckers in a diner,
knuckles greasy, gathering up
the creamy yolks with a crust,
before each climbs alone into his cab,

of a student breaking a bagel
in half as she runs to an early
class to present her report, bits of garlic
pungent on her tongue— 

all of us eager as a spaniel
under a table for that leftover rewarding
morsel of toast soaked in the perfume
of sausage or bacon— 

how we take the new day
into ourselves, and it crosses
the barriers of our cells
and enters our blood,
how it may feed us,
or not.

Originally published in Sequestrum (Summer, 2014). 



Sleep


May you fall into it
groggy and disheveled as a baby
who lets go of his mother’s 
nipple with a thwuck—head lolling,
cowlicks sticking up,
lips open and glistening.

May you fall into it
like a drunk keeling 
over onto his own stoop,  
having staggered the last possible
step on his slog from the bar.

May you not stand alone
on the shore at 3 A.M.,
longing to extricate yourself
from the gritty sand 
of consciousness, when everyone
you know has been swept out
by the sea of sleep.
                
May you reclaim once or twice
the gauze-fine sleep of childhood— 
calmly gliding from flickering shadow
to light, from flickering light
to shadow, like a punt
on a tree-lined river.

And may your last be utterly
black and quiet,
and last forever. 

Originally published in Avatar Review 17 (2015). 
©2016 Judy Kronenfeld
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