I didn’t bring a bouquet of purple lilac or dark chocolates: Gift-wrapped with ribbon and metallic silver bow …
Visiting The Ridge
After the ice storm, visiting a burned down childhood house.
Jacob’s Father
A holocaust memorial …
Mudstones
Unhung pictures leaning against an oak armoire. Family photographs set under glass. Hand-painted jugs. Tiffany lamps. Faded blue-washed walls. In this house lived three daughters and one son, a other, and a father.
Río Lagartos
A lament for lost wetlands.
Upstairs
Easter Sunday, 1952 – A poem for my mother, Magda Kovacs.
Victoria’s Daughter
A poem for my Magyar grandmother Maria Kovacs – Austria Hungary, in 1897
The Czech Village Of Lidice
Where a baroque church once stood, bells no longer ring at birth, at death, the joy of a wedding. In the hours after midnight, the village of Lidice was razed.
Sirroco
Red desert sand, blue-black cliffs. Lemon sky. The smell of fried arancini and calzone …
The Rug Weaver — Mojave, 1904
Piñon nuts, prickly pear cactus, she gathers juniper berries …