Your Rest Area


You understand the holler of the engine,
And its cipher language appeals to you.

     You connect with the roughness of the road,
     Burrowed by others like you driving away.

          You are not tired and you don’t stop,
          Your trip has no destination or final intent.

               You find it, in the serenity of the road,
               Mystically spread ahead of you.

Kathy and Paula

Mother gave us both dolls for Christmas.
They had soft cloth bodies, plastic faces and beautiful long hair.
Yours was the sandy blond—you named it Paula.
Mine was Kathy and had chestnut curls.
We said, “Kathy and Paula are now friends.”

Last year when I went home for Christmas,
In the drawer full of our old childhood toys, I found Kathy.
I wondered where you had put Paula.
For a moment, I thought that they must miss being together.

Like two sisters, who slowly grew-up together,
Composing stories about their doll friends,
Playing in the little house that we made,
And drinking tea from tiny porcelain cups.

Leaving Home

As a child I believed
That there was a magical little person
Living under my bed.
Djudja—that was her name,
Was a pretty blond,
Something between a doll and a midget.
I was not sure.
I often looked under my bed,
Hoping to find her,
I never did.
Later in life,
Going back home,
I realized that
She must have moved out too.

I Hate Childhood Poems

About lost friends, sibling
And detached memories,
Coming to haunt and remind,
That you’ve grown older,
Even though, you are not yet old,
Wiser, intellectually sophisticated and busy,
And such poems are nothing but
A guilty waste spent on stories
About broken tiny porcelain cups
And long gone, bald, one-eyed dolls.