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RECLAIMING THE DEAD by Miriam Kotzin

January 1, 2010 Contributed By: Miriam Kotzin

selections from RECLAIMING THE DEAD     

New American Press, 2008

by Miriam Kotzin

 

 

SEDER

     “And the Holy One, blessed be He, came and killed the Angel of Death.”
—Chad Gadya


The host is eager to begin.
Like a too familiar uncle, the Angel
of Death circles the table.
The first question:
whose turn.

Alone, my mother
and I refuse the dining room
and sit side by side
in easy chairs.  “Behold.
This is the bread of affliction.”

We dip parsley in salt water, but when
I open the front door, only winter’s
breath bears in
on the blue light.

Elijah’s glass stands full.
I have said all the blessings.  I
do not use
my father’s cup.

I raise and lower the plate,
reading all the words.  We complete
the service, but at the end we do not
choose to sing
Chad Gadya.

 

KEEPING TIME

Always before, you had been nimble.
While 78’s whirled, your pink
satin-slippered feet traced
graceful patterns round and round
in perfect time.  You held my hands
high above my head,
laughing partners.  So you taught
me how to dance, to enter
a room with grace, to please
and thank, to welcome, to pen
the proper note.
Here, too
it all counts;  the slow I-V,
a calibrated beaker, screens monitor
what one calls your progress.
Not all these tubes and wires together
can keep you tethered.  I feed you ice
chips like pomegranate seeds.

Mother, I promise to remember
your beauty.  I study your face,
seek your errant pulse, learn
from you one more, this last, the
necessary lesson.

 

ACAPULCO HOLIDAY

Each evening the sunset
offers itself up like
a gaudy sacrifice
we’ve come to expect, but
it plays itself out as
grudging, insincere.  We

watch the gold flare to yet
one more brilliance; a spike
of crimson repeats twice:
the trailing clouds are cut.
Another evening has
given way to night.  Three

days gone.  Four.  We forget
why we came here.  We strike
up talk with strangers, price
blankets, bargain for what
we do not want.  The jazz
band plays New York sounds.  We

grow careless, the regret
we once felt is gone like
lost small change.  Local ice
laces drinks:  coconut
filled with rum razzmatzz;
still no mariachi.

Return to table of contents for Issue 2 Winter 2010

Filed Under: Poetry Posted On: January 1, 2010

Further Reading

JOHN LATTA’S RESPONSE TO “SOME DARKER BOUQUETS”

Examens Négatifs: A Roster Incompleat Of course what is duly (and dully) lacking in poetry-reviewing (genus norteamericano) is the sublime (awe-striking) negative: it resides in (and emerges out of) the rhubarb and hubbub of regular, aggressively independent, and bravely committed engagement (and retaliatory exchange) with the contemporary (increasingly international) scene, a poking into all the various corners of […]

SOME DARKER BOUQUETS: A ROUNDTABLE

Note: The following letter responds to an editorial comment and three reviews by Jason Guriel, published in the March, 2009 issue of Poetry. Because portions of this letter were initially posted at Poetry’s online version, it could not be included in the print version of the magazine. In any case, the issues broached here regarding practices of reviewing in […]

Three Poems by Argyris Stavropoulos
translated from the Greek by Gigi Papoulias

“At last moving day has arrived.
From today, another house, indeed more spacious and airy
drenched in nonnegotiable sunlight, will accommodate me
and all the things the movers are struggling to carry…”

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