Taking Leave

Wanting Wanting to be frugal, She chooses the brown banana, Passes over the ripe one, Proud of her thrift, remembering her mother, Who drank sour milk, curdled in her coffee, The daughter disdainful, Her mother a mixture Of mildness and anger, Who defended the sour Swirl in her cup, good enough For her, who wasted nothing. Once promising herself better, The daughter peels the fruit oozing And consumes what’s bruised. The Faithful In Auschwitz, men of faith Facing death, Formed a tribunal And put God on trial. They found Him Guilty of the most unspeakable crimes And acts against humanity. At its conclusion Outraged, broken, the faithful Shook their feeble fists Against the sky, And at sight of the setting sun Cried That it was time For their evening prayers. Rosa Grandmother of my childhood, Stranger of my musings, Florida called you Away from the Bronx, Brooklyn, The shtetls of Poland, Away from the son whose name You could not say, You, with your mink coats And a house made of marble, A regular Zsa Zsa Gabor The neighbors said, With your unkosher pots And bottle-blonde hair, Your husband a fix it man With a broken boy he couldn’t bear, Who, ravaged by illness, The dream called America betrayed. But Boca beckoned With sun that glittered Like the gems you wore, With its sandy beaches Clean as your posh beige carpets, Away from the son you once hid In back rooms when guests came, His misshapen frame the bane Of an evil eye. Your other child, A self-made man Proclaimed his state As the one true son. The day you died, he by your side, Called to announce You left us Nothing.