Judy Kronenfeld Verse-Virtual 2017 May

May 2017

My fourth full-length collection of poems, Bird Flying through the Banquet, came out from FutureCycle Press in March, and I’m just delighted to have been able to work with editor Diane Kistner, who is, simply put, a peach. 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. I have lived with my husband in Riverside since 1969 (in a now long-emptied nest), but my Wordsworthian place will always be the New York City of my childhood and teenage years. For more information, and a selection of my poems and prose, please see http://judykronenfeld.com.

ILLUSION

Before I quite realize what
it is, the trousered half
of myself approaches me
in a mirrored storefront
with so familiar
a gait—slightly splayed out,
slightly flat-footed, the buff-colored
soles of the shoes flopping up
like a cartoon duck’s
bright feet—that a warmth
seizes me, an anticipation
that I cannot place
until I recognize the heft and cadence
of my father’s homeward
stride, his winter overcoat
flapping against his shins, in the same
instant that my body floods
the mirror
and his death
returns.

Originally published in Cimarron Review 174 (Winter, 2011).

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