Refusal to Forgive

Would I  know you
with green whisperings for hair,
cyber-space eyes, your bones
white remains of obligations?

Do you still wear our father’s face?

I have become Mother,
with corseted morals and hair dyed mink.
My blue eyes turned brown like yours,
shoveling the pungent refuse
left by your husband’s dirty dealings.
Where is the brass marker
with our family’s name? It is gone
from our seats in the synagogue.

Your locker at the country club
has also been removed.
The city folded your name
into an origami bird and burned it.

You will find me by the sea;
wearing a hair shirt of grief and guilt.
Seeking me will be a slow hot secret,
like a snail trailing a crack.
Hot sand will grind calluses on your tender feet.

We will meet in an angry embrace,
crabs scuttling envy and greed,
still snapping blue at Maryland.

Butterfly curses will rise from your lips.
Praise will fall like anvils from my mouth.
Stinking like dead fish, we won’t get
close enough to resolve anything.

Alpha / Omega

They say: “everything comes to he who waits”
Age – definitely
Wisdom- still open for discussion
Happiness -intermittent

How did we get here so fast-
deep into the third third?  Time,
desire and decisions directed us forward.

Life is like a canoe, (narrow as a birth canal,)
buoyant in placid water, and then
rushing over unforeseen rapids of pain;
devastation, swamping us with negative surprises
(life jackets are not always provided).

Friendship is a reward for staying the course.
The paddle, thin, lovely and strong; but misunderstandings
sometimes make it a blade of destruction.

Now the journey is becalmed, but we
are still friends, hand in hand
waiting for the end, together .

Author bio:

Magi Schwartz is an independent poet writing in South Florida for thirty years. She gives readings, and conducts an interactive poetry workshop called “Imagine That” in both the public and private sectors of the community.

She is vice-president/ treasurer of the Hannah Kahn Poetry Foundation. Schwartz is Poet Laureate of Hollywood, Florida since 1992. Her chapbook, Pieces of Glass, features poems about women.