In J.H.S.

we had played

simple games--

house, grown-up

putting on her mother's high heels 

and lipstick;

sometimes we'd go shopping.

 

Today in temple

while praying

I spot her brother in the crowd;

he has grown tall and handsome

in the last twenty years.

 

"How's Susan?" I inquire

 

"Schizophrenic

for the past ten years,

a vegetable

she hardly leaves the house."

 

What kind, I wonder

a zucchini--tall, slender, remote

or maybe a potato

with eyes that gaze inward,

perhaps a tomato

her cheeks had been so red

and lovely.

 

 

Grandmother

 

She arrives

from where

the dead have slept.

Stands

in  my living room

fatter than I remember her,

dressed like the elders

in Russia

wide, black dress

babushka on her head;

her voice

pulses in my veins

especially when she says:

"I came to visit Kalman

the baby boy

you named after my dead son,