CLS Sandoval

I Made You Something Special [Again]

I wove cotton around until the loom turned into a rainbow

The clouds only opened to place a waterfall in the sky

I’m hiding just beyond the steel post so I don’t get caught

Perhaps fluency in Pig Latin would increase my cover

 

So there were planes, trains, and automobiles

And she only wanted to walk the circumference of the earth

The [dis]fluencies embedded in the translation of my whisper

Is all you have to rely on

 

You always remind me that I already know how you feel

Of course I do

And of course you know I cannot take a joke

If you’ll come jump rope, I promise I’ll smile just for you

 

You played our song on instruments which remain [un]invented

I spent all night attempting to construct choreography to match your music

And you keep reminding me to take joys in the simple things

I only wanted to make you happy; you say I already do

 

I wore myself out trying to keep up with you

And you only wanted me to sit still

Never have I been truly loved

Excuse me for taking so long to adjust

 

Instead of knitting you another scarf that you won’t ever need

Or writing round myself in circles

I’ll have to do my best to just breathe and accept your love

I love you, too

My Illusion

I watched her push herself, over achieving all the while,

Observed the world:  her audience in admiration.

Her hair grew long and she painted her nails,

She wore a suit, cleaned and pressed, as she won her titles.

 

It was in one of these suits that she met him, her love,

He appeared perfection, the answer to her prayers.

Dashing, talented, fun, with fulfilling words to spare,

He called, they spoke, and he claimed he loved her.

 

She was elated, but he was miles and miles away,

With love only for him, she made her plans.

One day, he stopped calling, and she restrained herself,

She thought she had everything she wanted, needed.

 

The world agreed that she was admirable, strong,

Twice raped, innumerably betrayed and neglected.

She showed no sign of the weakness that she hated herself for,

Just the gashes, fresh and deep, self-imposed for tears.

 

When she boarded that bus, with hope anew…he called,

She knew that he loved her, wanted her, and needed her.

He was even on time to pick her up, and then showed her off,

She let him undress her that first night, knowing it was wrong.

 

All day, after the morn, she waited for him to return,

Though he was there in body, he could not have been farther away.

I almost feel sorry for her, this perfect, perfect girl,

Then I realize how well I know her, and I despise her instead.

 

That “perfect,” stupid girl is me.

 

Our Moments

 

I have no greater desire than to stop time in this moment.

We’ve been to the Santa Monica Pier.

The highs and lows of the carnival.

 

The ardor of your touch bends me to your will.

Each moment builds me up.

With limbs entwined, we make beautiful music.

The warmth of your skin against mine fills me with hope.

We’ve been skiing in Big Bear.

The zig zag down the mountain, avoiding the trees.

 

You spark a fire in me, previously untouched.

The paint of your passion fills my empty canvas.

You stretch my intellect; teach me and I’ll learn.

I bare your mark with pride, traveling through life.

An abstract world of love, you make my reality.

Depth of your gaze touches my complex self.

I long for you every moment you leave my side.

We’ve been to the soda shop in Julian.

Sipping thick mint chip malts and eating apple pie.

 

Within our moments together…

 You weave a web around my heart.

The strength and warmth of your embrace keeps me safe.

Wrap me in your arms, lay me down, let us stay forever.

I am absolutely taken, swept away by your intensity.

My heart is softened by the tenderness of your gaze.

You see inside of me, you caress my very soul.

There is no one I would rather touch, see, taste…

No one can fulfill me like you do, with your simple grin.

Your sideways glance falls upon me for a moment.

We’ve been to Disneyland.

Walked miles just to stand still, waiting for Big Thunder Railroad.

 

Everything is fine.

It is all worth it.

You are my motivation.

Thoughts of you propel me through the day.

Your company is everything to me.

I have no greater desire; no greater need.

If I’m not in love, I’m soon to be, I know.

Patricia Murphy

Pie

Pie in the sky

Is a wonderous opportunity.

It's great to taste.

It's marvelous to bake

Like a cake.

Make no mistake

I love home made pie.

Durch, Apple, Peach, Cherry and Pecan

Are all my favorites.

They are splendid & tasteful.

So delightful to create

Like a mate

Who is up to date.

And make a rating.

At a state.

It's never too late

Bur don't be fake..

Sigh

I sigh when things go blind.

If we whine, it's a crime.

But it's time to dine

On wine and roses.

Like poses.

Like the smell of roses.

So sweet and yet deadly.

As we grow up

And become older

We soldier on in life.

To become what we

Are today

In a great way

To stay young.

Charles Harmon

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF Pi

Born on Leap Day, I’m still a teenager at 78.

My little sister, born on March 14th, pigs out on pies her birthday.

As kids we went to the International House of Pancakes for pancakes,

to Marie Callendar’s or the House of Pies for pies,

to Winchell’s for donuts, and to McDonalds for Big Mac’s and fries.

One sister won the pie eating contest by shoving her face in the pie.

Another, born on New Years Day. Guess our parents were April Fools…

My brother in arms, born the 3rd of July, firecracker with a short fuse.

Yes, pies make me sigh, but now that I’m old and overweight and have

diabetes I must avoid them, so I won’t die and make my family sigh.

But I remember them well from when I was young and well!

Pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, strawberry pie in summer, cherry pie!

Lemon meringue, chocolate, blueberry pie! How sweet it is!

There was this dumb girl in my math class who was running around

saying, “Pie are square.” Poor little fool! You know that pies are round!

But I was the greater fool as she explained to me that pi is a Greek letter

that represents a mathematical constant that approximates the ratio of the

circumference of a circle to the diameter, and it equals about 3.14 and she

proceeded to rattle off the first one hundred digits of pi from memory!

Looking back at that day back in 7th grade, I actually became good friends 

with that girl with the genius IQ, and I was dumb to criticize her grammar.

She was rattling off pi because it was pi day, created on March 14th to help

kids become more aware and conscious about mathematics. And this was

a revelation that really got me thinking about many things such as infinity,

eternity, how can this number, pi, go one forever? And this really blew the

minds of the ancient Greek mathematicians, one of whom, Archimedes,

first calculated the value of pi based on the ratio of 22/7. Babylonians,

Egyptians, Greeks and Geeks alike all tried to discover this magic number

that goes on forever, this irrational number that divides into infinity.

So I’ll celebrate pi day with a tiny slice of pie with coffee, but I won’t 

go on forever because I don’t want to die for pie or pi, and that’s no lie!

gia civerolo

cherry pie pomo haiku

 

Cherry pie with ice

Cream on top, shook the chaos

the cave of her chest

i hate milk

 

I hate milk, so I won’t cry

if it gets spilled across the kitchen 

table dripping tears for you

on a dirty linoleum floor

 

Killing two birds with one stone

feathers wafting down

collecting in a pink satin pillow

I can sleep on while having 

nightmares of birds falling from the

sky landing on a gray sidewalk 

splatting a red stain to step over

 

You stabbed me in the back

leaving the knife twisting

in the wind with the sound

of thunder clapping hands

getting a standing ovation

for your work

 

I lost all my marbles again today

You plucked the winning ones

swirling colors of my eyes

black holes now, where I can only 

see the last image of you

 

How did you find the last straw

hiding on the camel's back

with two humps shaped like

my tits before they began to sag

between the needle and the haystack

 

You can say that again but

please don’t as your words

keep ringing my bell while

Quasimodo hangs at the

end, gargoyles watching

 

No pain no gain?

Pain keep pulsating

to the beat of my heart

looking for that once in a

blue moon tingling feeling

 

Speak of the devil, he appears 

beckoning for me to cuddle

next to him while hell freezes over

Fire rages on the perimeter

I am mesmerized by the flames

 

I wish your ignorance was bliss

but the darkness cloaks the world

Pretending to be dress smart

 

I want my pie in the sky

sitting on the clouds

Scooping them up like 

Spoon fulls of vanilla ice cream

 

When life gives me lemons

Fuck the lemonade unless

you add vodka with a sugar rim

 

Radomir Vojtech Luza

Wounded Lion

Paws drowning in blood

Whiskers caked in mud

Claws colored in skin

Bated sighs

Red blueberry pies

Trembling thighs

I hurt

I am scarred

Bruised and battered

But I continue on

Like a butterfly in a barn 

Never stopping or hopping on myself

I soar through the jungle like a bent 747

Rampaging Rhinoceros

Jealous Jaguar

Weeping at dawn

Sobbing at dusk

Soul at rust

Heart to dust

When do I heal?

Get real?

Seal the deal?

Maybe when I start to feel

The ocean at the street of Beale

 

Substitute Cowboy

Through the caged sighs

Carefree lies

Boysenberry pies

I see you for who you are

A runaway dictator

With nothing to say

My grandfather's Nazi murderer

Dressed in dark gray

Grandpappa, Czech General on midnight steed

Leader of the Czech Resistance during WWII

Ambushed and murdered in 1944

Highest possible state honor at the door

The good always pay 

For the evil we bray

Loving and giving

Killing and willing

Who was this soldier in black?

A golden rainbow knack?

Mankind's last chance

At a moral meteor attack?

PJ Swift

 π

The moon can't exist without this number

π

The all-powerful sun needs it too

π

All the stars in the heavens and beyond and below and all around,

all depend on 

π

which is irrational, infinite 

and, like the universe

immortal 

π

Jeffry Jensen

GONE HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

From Wichita to Okinawa with an oboe on my knee,

I suffered from surname interruptus

and mixed up Sartre with Ginseng tea.

Audubon went to the birds,

but I drove the Autobahn without ruffling any feathers.

Rumor has it that we will all receive

a big apocalyptic pie in the face if we keep

on fucking up the planet at such a fast pace.

I have taken to hurtling from one flaming ravine to another

without regard for the undisturbed proclamations

that live in my most toss-and-turn gut region.

It was deep breathing day last Tuesday down on the memory farm,

where all good clairvoyants sigh a sigh of relief

that they do not have to wear the philosophical feedbags again

in order to fatten up for house inspection by the clairvoyant police.

An argument lost is a bottle of single malt on the horizon.

The ruling-class claws cannot dig deep enough into my long skinny neck.

I am not even worthy of carrion crows circling my field of play.

Poetic exaltation is leaking all the way from here to Timbuktu.

No respectable shuteye academic is going to swallow

any of the rooftop howls coming from my sprawling mouthful of shit.

Before you know it, this wobbly year will disappear into the latest

neighborhood cultural Black Hole and the very gone of gone

will have most certainly left the building and taken up residence

somewhere on the far side of the expanding Milky Way.

Karen Pierce Gonzalez

Cosmic coffee with pie

Always open, the sky bistro’s  

empyreal sea sailors

select best sublime star blends—

morning, noon, and night shades

of Sirius, Mimosa, and Rigel—

to serve up with wedges

of Andromeda pie;

crusted with crumbs

of honeyed lunar light.

 

At the counter we sip

what skilled stargazer baristas

have pressed and poured into our cups

and bite into freshly baked dessert slices,

topped with warmed dollops of sun.

Mark A Fisher

pi poem

wrote

the day after

I

had baked pies to eat

celebrated with friends stopping by

to chat

about how much life changed

since the last time we’d

had the chance

to get together

the day before lock down happened

years ago when the room was fuller

but time has passed and so have

too many friends and I wonder which

of these friends

still here

will still be

with us for another long year

filled with new plans

preparations for next

pi day

Alicia Viguer-Espert

 

sitting on the table

surrounded by watchful eyes

she sits quietly

heat steaming out of her,

the now golden pie

the lemon tart

I bake every Tuesday

surprises tongues, 

fills happy bellies,

purses sticky cheeks

debates continue,

were they seven or three?

one thing is clear

the Hesperides’ apples

made the best pies

Patricia Carragon

Kitty Pie Haiku

the mark of pie

covers kitty’s face

guilty as charged

 

catpuccino pie

kitty jumps on counter

free licks of cream

 

pizza pie party

kitty opens box

steals a slice

 

kitty hates pi

pie must die

paws in motion

 

Wyatt Underwood

making a mistake right

 

once upon a time - good stories always start that way -

once upon a time a Harley rider rode into a desert town

filled his ride's tank, then rode to a cafe and entered

he ordered a cheeseburger, cocola, and fries

while he ate them a girl-woman approached

sat down across from him and shimmied her breasts

"Please," she said, "get me outa this town.

I promise I'll make it worth your while."

the Harley rider grunted and offered her some fries

when he finished his meal, they left together

the girl-woman shivered at her daring

he had an extra helmet and helped her put it on

they mounted and rode out of town a hundred miles

he stopped at a motel in the next town west

rented a room and they went in

she shuddered but smiled and shimmied her breasts again

they sat, he in the chair, she on the bed

studied each other in silence

"You're not eighteen, are you?" he said

she shivered again and shook her head

he grinned and teased her, "Twenty?"

she smiled adorably, but ducked her head, "Fifteen"

the Harley rider stared past the room walls at the horizon

"Does your mother know?" he asked, "Have you her permission?"

"How badly I want out and gone?  Yes," she said

"Specifically that I left with you?  No."

they studied each other in silence again

"I prob'ly should take you home," he regretted

"I prob'ly should feel grateful," she agreed

they sighed and left the motel room

re-helmeted, remounted and rode back

she directed him to her mother's house

her mother ran to them as they took their helmets off

her mother ran to them, ready to fight or cry

"Look, Mother," the daughter said

"This nice man gave me the best ride!"

the women hugged and walked to the house

the Harley rider put her helmet away

stared at the closed door

re-helmeted and rode

this time to the next town north

he stopped at a bar and drank three beers

danced with a waitress and downed a shot

before he risked going to bed

undreamed

 

the cowboy stares at the horizon

somewhere west of here draws him

he has no story in mind yet

just not here, not now, not this campfire

not these cattle, not this grass

somewhere that needs his strength

his intelligence, his skills

he grins and pours a cup of coffee

just now these cattle need just that

his strength, intelligence and skills

he stirs and sips, feeds the fire

sighs and slips into his bedroll

someday that west may draw him yet

right now duty and honor win the night

 

Carl Stilwell AKA Caloki

To Luke on His 56th Birthday 

Almost 10 years since 

your body left us

Pie ‘N Burger still there 

but Coco’s gone

Sigh

Speaking of pies 

Too much pastry belly 

hanging over 38 size 

waist Levis along with too 

many pounds over 200 

and I’m only 5’9”

I know

How am I going to denounce 

fat cats in my poetry when 

I’m one myself?

Jesus Christ Superstar!

The King almost 40 

just scored 40,000 points!

A half century 

younger than me

I’m 89 

Still walking the line 

but need walker to shop 

and CPAP to sleep

Like the Beatles sang,

I get by with a little help 

from my friends

But hey, I’m younger than 

Noam Chomsky who’s 

perceptive and insightful as 

ever but I wouldn’t be 

surprised one bit if he 

sometimes puts ice cream 

in fridge instead of freezer 

and always looking for his 

misplaced cell phone like me

Instead of visiting us in my dream 

last night, you were living with us 

and you and I were shopping in 

South Pasadena, your hometown

56 years since you came into 

the world and made my life

Thank you for being my son

Shih-Fang Wang

Down the Aisle

She saw the backward turn of his head

The almost wistful look in his eyes

As he walked down the aisle

With his delightful bride

It could have been her

But alas too late

She must not dwell

On what could have been

She finally sees the cost

Of her unconfessed love

Her sighs and sadness

Will always linger

In her memory

Pamela Shea

Pies, Glorious Pies

Oh, pies make me sigh

I’ve yet to meet a bad one

Except for rhubarb

Which was rather unnerving

Therefore no second serving

 

The ones I like best

Tend to startle teeth fillings

With their sugar surge

And I cannot fight the urge

For just a small sliver more

 

I really fancy

Lemon meringue, so dreamy

And oh, so fluffy

So add that one to my list

Of preferred pies with a twist

 

Pecan? – Oh, Mon Dieu!

My mother was a great cook

And this was present

At all of our Thanksgivings

Alongside pumpkin, of course

 

I could go on more

But I am getting hungry

I’m also drooling

And no, I am not fooling

So I’m now off to the store

 

Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu!

jf giraffe

HE WANTS MORE (HAIKU) 

Not only one piece.

The pie is his favorite.

Sighs when he gets two.

Ellyn Maybe

IN THE HOUSE OF GRAPEFRUIT AND CITRUS

 

In the house of grapefruit and citrus, my emotions peel away

like I am the hybrid utensil.

Questions are asked and a little like a Pearl Jam song,

I don't know what to say.

Rain lives in my eyes half the time and umbrellas twirl in my cornea,

it's a very crowded place.

Do I say something inarguable and trite

like weather is a reliable topic in many states on many farms.

Do I say let me count the ways

with a mirror in one hand and a lasso in the other.

I thought I was on the same train, going to the same station

in the same city, but my map said up and your map said sideways 

and our cities became blurry.

I've walked till there was glitter on my heels.

Sidewalks told me their stories.

Street lamps told me their songs.

I heard something on the wind that felt like home

so I made it a scarf and wrapped it around me.

I felt a memory deep as wood, old as silver going into my trunk.

Like I was a tree, and life was an ember.

If I hadn't felt your breath on my soul, trust me, I wouldn't have sat

in the diner.

I know the menu by heart.

But here I am someone asking what I want today

and do I want pie with that

and I am in the diner with a sandwich named after me 

and you are cooking something special

and frankly, you make whatever you cook special

and I eat it slowly savoring every bite

and each bite is a fortune cookie

and each moment makes me a tiny bit hungrier

and each taste seems handpicked for me.

Uncanny how that works.

MOTORCYCLE MUFFLER

 

Waiting 5 years at the SCA Gallery on Thomas Street,

the motorcycle muffler grew into a rhythm.

Studied abstract expressionism on Tuesdays.

Ceramics on Thursday.

Philosophy on Saturday.

The muffler had gone 'round the world, at first it had visited volcanoes 

and folk festivals.

The muffler was the proverbial nerd wrapped in a copper

and rust t shirt.

Of course Easy Rider was always playing in the motorcycle lounges,

but this muffler also had a soft spot for Bergman and Truffaut.

Making snap judgments is sheer folly, always.

The muffler had ferried across the sea many times,

giving lectures on botany.

Mufflers and plants have a sort of secret admiration society.

Mufflers used to grow on trees, like persimmons, like music.

Trees used to grow everything in ancient times.

Then things became specialized.

Mufflers went where all the motors went.

Boat and airplane engines used to host soirees where people danced.

Of course everything talked in ancient times.

You could have a great conversation with a chair and no one thought

you were the slightest bit odd.

It was natural.

Sofas could quote Shakespeare, tables could cook you a mean soup and

deal a deck of cards all at the same time.

People felt slightly threatened by the renaissance all around them.

Lots of mufflers and old divans got put in rust yards,

but they whisper long past dark of all the things they used to do.

Memory scrapbooks atop the heap archive the moments.

Amidst the dust of a landfill is the history of this

and the archaeology of that.

Miniature cities atop each other, like modern ruins and thankfully

what is safe from ruin.

Every year the muffler celebrated a birthday.

After a million, the cake became more candle than flour.

Today was just another day for the muffler, Russian lit reading

the morning away, listening to the Bob Dylan show

on Satellite Radio.

If you asked the muffler how it was, it always answered fine. 

Inflections told the rest of the story.

One sigh and it had gone back to the years on the tree.

Two sighs and it had remembered the day the tree was gone.

The muffler was nostalgic and loved old movies.

I was walking by on Nov. 21st, 2009

in the world when the earth was a symphony of fruit and water.

I grabbed the muffler and ran down the stairs to where the concert was 

about to begin.

When Tommy met the muffler and the muffler met Tommy,

all the muffler's memories of ancient times returned singing.

Hard to believe, 5 years, one thousand eight hundred

and twenty five days had gone by while the muffler,

though hardly idle, waited.

Yet, this is a true story.

Mary Mayer Shapiro

For Filling a Dream 

Apple tree rooted in the orchard 

Enjoying the zephyr 

While the apples mature 

To full growth 

Socializing with each other 

What do you want to be 

When you grow up said one 

All answered in as if all at once 

A plain fruit to be eaten 

Apple sauce, jelly, apple tart 

Apple pie 

Scientific apple, help Issac Newton 

Discover gravity 

One apple hanging in the tree 

Never realized his fate when grown 

Only wanted to sway with the breeze 

Depression set in 

Would not accept his destiny 

Decided to break free and run away 

An idea came to him 

I will be like Johnny Apple seed 

When the time came 

Decided to break free and run far away 

As he rotted, he dug his seeds into the earth 

Continued the process throughout the years 

Spread Apple trees throughout the land 

A Pie in the Sky 

Wouldn't it be wonderful 

If the Garden of Eden extended 

Throughout the land 

Peaceful existence, no war 

No anger, jealously or greed 

Love and caring for you fellow being 

Food plentiful, no pollution 

But you cannot be children all your life  

You must take responsibility for yourselves 

Eat from the Tree of Knowledge 

Make decision, think for yourselves  

When wrong, make right 

Take the good with the bad 

A pie in the sky is a dream world 

Just another fairy tale 

Pi 

Mathematical constant 

3.14159 

A ratio of a circle’s circumference 

To its diameter 

 

A decimal representation 

Never ends 

Not a repeating pattern 

With no solution 

 

Created by Archimedes 

Using hexagons inside and outside a circle 

Creation of Pi 

Is a miracle by itself 

 

Be aware 

It is a Pi you cannot eat 

Not a thing you can taste 

Only something you can count  

Jackie Chou

Love Potion 3.14

I called him Pi Face

the math whiz whose acne 

oozed like cherry-filling

out of tiny crust holes

I'd get on all fours

and crawl onto his desk

exposing the cellulite

under my pleated cheer skirt

I'd run my fingers through

his dandruffy hair

and lick drips of red syrup

with my tongue on his cheek

What a treat that would be!

before his skin cleared

and other drooling mouths

got a taste of him

Mary Langer Thompson

Lemon Power

 

It’s one of those fruits you

can’t take by itself,

can’t even lick its acidic

tartness and tanginess with-

out puckering.

It’s a team player only, and

for more than lemonade.

 

Remember the night you flew

To Vietnam?

We ate your favorite pie made

from not yet mature, green ovals.

The whipped up eggwhite on top

didn’t look quite right.

We nervously laughed and couldn’t

understand why the meringue was

weeping and shrinking,

making the crust wet.

 

When you returned, my bridesmaids

wore yellow, as bright

as our eyes could stand.

Petrouchka Alexieva

Be Prepared to do Fine

Credit: https://www.whats-thesayinganswers.com/slice-of-life/

 

We don’t remember everybody’s delight

when we scream with the first breath,

but to the rest of the life

so many people try to close our mouth

and…this is the very first slice of the life’s pie

that we have to chew to the last day. True.

 

When we start to walk, we are afraid of fall,

all clap hands with a smile and support,

but to the rest of the life, there is always somebody

who tries to throw us back from the stair while walking up

and…this is just the second slice of the life’s pie

that we have to chew to the last day. True.

 

When we kiss for the first-time craving love,

we remember the shy and the joy,

but later in life, the love pain struck many times

- even in the last moment until we are gone.

and…this is just the third slice of the life’s pie

that we have to chew to the last day. True.

 

Oh, life is this oven with stone plate

on which we bake, rotate,

slice problems, sprinkle courage and hope. Some parts

might be undercooked, overcooked or just fine,

but everyone wants a slice from our days

 – big bite, small bite or just medium one.

So, be prepared to do fine, my newborn grandson.

Joe Grieco

Chasing Pippa

Let’s make a pie

A cherry pie

You and I

A little tart

You little tart

What was it in the baker’s belly

By the stove of thorns and iron?

I wish that we could nap in Venice

Where Robert Browning went to die

Deep the cherries

Lush the crust

Shallow the breath on the Bridge of Sighs

Robert Fleming

 

Marianne Szlyk

Thelma in Largo

She gives in
to the manager
(who is a flirt, by the way)
and orders the sweet potato fries.

She won’t outgrow
her new shoes,
the cobalt and black stilettos,
the nude pumps,
even the silver suede boots.

She settles in,
just fitting onto the stool, and
tosses her glossy hair
until she notices some men
watching.

Then she busies herself
cutting up the chicken
in her salad.

She adds
just a little dressing.

The girl refills her soda.
Or is it pop?
Co-cola?  Coke?

Thelma gives in
and orders
a slice of lemon pie.

She gives in.

Originally published in Aberration Labyrinth

The Nurses Welcome My Father Home

For him, though, that is Worcester,
city of single-serving Table Talk pies
bought at my cousin’s grocery store;
city of coffee ice cream, of scrambled eggs
with kielbasa served at the all-night diner
downtown, served with a can of Moxie;

city of old factories where friends’ parents worked
turned into cannabis dispensaries, shops
that sell hemp clothing; city of pharmacies
turned into vape shops and sushi bars;

city of old schools that look like factories,
coal-soaked stone hulking on the hillside;
city of dirt roads, rough trails retreating
into groves of ailanthus, boxy houses,
and boulders twice their size;

city of the paper he still reads,
amid the politics, looking for funny stories
about marijuana-infused ice cream
available in tomato sorbet or squash
or the wedding at Northboro’s cemetery
where only the minister wore a mask;

city of the accent he is losing
as the nurses welcome him home.


Originally published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly

 

 

Ritz Cracker Pie

One Sunday afternoon in 1960 my father saved us from Aunt Moo’s mock-apple pie. Made with margarine, Realemon juice, cinnamon, sugar, and Ritz crackers, served with Cracker Barrel cheese, it wasn’t a bad pie.  It was probably a good pie.  It was even homemade.  It just wasn’t an apple pie.

Sixty-two years later, I find it hard to believe that the Victory Supermarket on North Main Street had run out of apples.  This fruit was grown all over New England before ranches, split-levels, malls, and McMansions took over.  Perhaps the pie was a trick to test my father, the young dentist with a crewcut and a convertible.  Or the pie was my aunt’s specialty, served at canasta parties and picnics by the lake, the mid-century equivalent of your kiwi cheesecake or my coffee brownies made from a mix. Or a sign that my father would be invited to the next picnic on the shores of Lake Whalom.

If Dad hadn’t discerned that the pie’s apples were really crackers fresh from the box, would Aunt Moo have brought the pie every blessed Thanksgiving throughout the Seventies?  I wince, picturing my brother and mother picking at their slices of pie while Dad and I hide ours in French vanilla ice cream from Friendly’s.  We might have had more Thanksgivings with my father’s side of the family where my aunt Irene served the mashed potatoes made with skim milk from a gigantic aluminum pot and my uncle’s girlfriend brought key lime pie and, for the younger adults, grasshopper pie.

Would I even be here if Dad had not passed the test?

Originally published in Setu: Food Issue.