artwork: ralph murre
From the
amusement park
~
by Marjorie Stamm Rosenfeld
each
night above the line
where
dark has draped its coat
unevenly
on trees that huddle close,
the
rockets rise. I hear them
before
I see them –
tiny
crackles
of
resistant thunder.
Once,
on the 4th,
in
a younger world,
friends
from India
Mina
and her dark-eyed brood –
Bablu,
Laltu, baby Dinku –
family
gathered in with us
on
gentle grass. Mina said,
“All
of your chilled-ren
are
sveet, but Ah-mee is soo,
sooo
sveet.” That July the fireworks
fanned
out so big and bright
they
stretched the sky
and
showered us
with
crimson points of light
and
golden coins.
Now
where stars
are
faint through holes
they’ve
punched in night:
no
glimmer of grace.
I
am looking for you
everywhere. I grab the phone
and
I imagine you. I see your face,
the
features change. Flaming globes
of
orange and green shoot up,
a
trail of blue, a silver sheen
before
the previous
has
died.
But
far off
in
an anarchy
of
sky.
You
are not there,
the
child I tried so hard for,
finally
had.
You
are not there.
~
previously published in Fringing the
Garments
(Pecan Grove Press)
