I placed the half-full bucket of black walnuts on the ground and took a deep breath. For Gram, it’s not so hard to carry, but I’m still little and half-full is more than enough for me. I turned around and looked back toward her back yard, full of trees, scanning the surface to see if I had missed any black walnuts.
Tag: New York Page 4 of 5
This poem was published in the anthology “A Sea of Treasures” in 1995. It was the first thing I had written to be published.
Ellis Island
The beds lie in
Soldier rows
ten by five
Steel frames that are
more of a home
to roaches
Paint peels off
and rust
corrodes the springs
mattresses full
of lice
and
rats
burrowing in
The beds are pushed
against walls
where paint chips
fall
No sheet
no blanket
just a pillow
to rest a
weary head
My mother worked for twenty-seven years at the Middletown Psychiatric Center. Most of her career was on the geriatric units. Over the years, I got to know a few of the patients. I always liked talking with Adalaide, even if she didn’t talk much. Just as I entered my teenage years, she passed away. I wrote this poem about her a decade later, sometime between 1993 and 1995.