THE MUD ABOVE, THE SKY BELOW
This is the year of my mother's streets,
and the streets of those with whom
she played mah jong. A snowball flies
from the fist of Bubbles the Nun,
knocks the Yiddish right out of me.
Shortly thereafter, we gather in the schvitz,
our scrawny legs poke out from towels,
and I introduce my two brothers, Horse
Race and Real Estate, who hang a versht
- a wurst - outside the door to ward off
- No, who hang a wurst outside the door
until it dries and is ready eat. Into the future
we dash, eyes peeping out between
two and a three, those who are here for it,
those who are gone, and we leap up slowly,
into the mud,
and soon we will plummet, content,
to the sky below, and sit for our portrait
by an artist of our choice, and thus
we are prepared for war, prepared to draw
the cool cloth across our forehead,
our collective forehead, we are joined
at the forehead. We hoist our suspenders
and stroll down Coolmine, our hands
in our pockets, our eyes
in their sockets.
Stuart Ross
31 December 2002, for 2003
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Poet, fictioneer, writing instructor //
Razovsky at Peace (ECW Press, 2001)
// Hey, Crumbling Balcony! Poems
New & Selected (ECW Press, 2003)
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