Estate
Appraisal
The landlord
can keep the deposit, one long-ago check
out of seven-hundred-twenty monthly checks.
Next month no more checks,
and all traces of their having lived here will be swept away.
But I'm not cleaning; let him keep the few bucks
and push his own broom.
No Tiffany lamps, no Victorian chairs,
nothing remotely art deco,
everything faded, everything dusty,
everything so ordinary as to be only chintzy.
No auction is needed, no antique dealer need appraise,
I wonder if even my memories are secondhand.
The camera in the closet still has film in it.
The snapshot number is twelve.
It's a fifties Kodak but like everything else here,
too common to be dear.
Fifty years later at the lease's end,
I'm alone in this apartment.
I've bagged some useful junk and whatever memories.
I'm eager to exit, overdue to leave.
My brothers and sisters might be smiling,
and my parents forever arm and arm,
all inside a budget camera a generation and a half old.
But along the ancient film everything must be blank,
or brittle to the point of dust,
for nothing inside was ever developed.
Little
Red Riding Hood, The Sequel
The town
criers cried my story,
a gold piece a cry,
and minstrels got bagfuls of yellow
from wide-eyed salivating courtiers.
As for me, royalties---in those days---were for royals.
When grandma finally croaked all she left
was that thatched cottage with a leaky roof,
to be shared with three---of course wicked---stepsisters.
Was cheated out of the dump completely,
after all I was just a babe in the woods.
My woodsman rescuer did his fairytale deed out of love,
love for mankind, and how he loved mankind.
Besides I had no dowry, except
my basket already eaten from,
and my red cloak.
My red cloak, not a sissy white one, but a flashy red one.
The next wolf this babe meets,
gets charged a gold piece a nibble.
I'll save enough for a deluxe ginger bread condo
for when my looks go.
Then I'll get down to some serious dining.
Visions
Of A Mortal Ascension
Is there
one Mayfly with wisdom?
Does it
hesitate---its life almost over---
when it at last crawls up that stem,
quitting forever its muddy birth waters,
hearing for the first time the songs
of the winged beings who might eat it,
feeling for the first time the spring breezes
that may blow it astray---to places vastly unknown---
seeing for the first time the blinding heavenly light
that precedes the unzipping of its last armor
and the surging of green blood that stiffens its too fragile wings?
Does it
surrender willingly the taste of prey amid the turbid mud?
Does it, indeed, willingly surrender the mud?
Does it move by instinct or faith?
Does it hesitate as we do
before that last and brightest light
that shuts the eyes forever?
The
Park Ranger
How she
walked among trees,
(After
researching the field guides
to match the wayward caterpillar with its proper leaf,
she knelt almost prayerlike
and took the bug from the dirt path and searched
the knotted green till she found the plant,
and like a ballerina she stretched her arms,
while her fingers
slowly placed the bug on the greenest leaf,
as her drab-green-baggy pants pulled
tight against her legs;
then so carefully she arranged all the foliage
so not a mote of the woods remained undisturbed
by her rescue.
I don't remember the details
of her lecture on flora or fauna,
or even if her face was pretty or plain.)
I remember
only how she walked among trees.
Dead
Fly Beauty
Started
on a pristine men's room wall.
I put the N.Y. Times Literary Supplement to good use.
Swatted two flies. Crushed black bugs on a white wall.
By next day the remains had become nipples,
for some unknown creator drew breasts around them.
I swatted a few more below these breasts.
The next day I beheld a headless female torso,
immodestly sporting her crushed flies.
Two more swats above.
And again the mysterious night Rembrant did his secret work,
turning carcasses into the dark eyes of a most beautiful face.
A lady of the dead flies,
but not for long.
After hours the unseen creator scraped off the grisly beginning
and drew a flowing gown around the naked torso.
And his magic marker coronated her with a diadem.
He made long eyelashes and gave her a smile.
An angel on the urinal wall
watching over legions of men seeking relief.
I, the catalyst for this, could only stand in envy and awe.
Her morbid beginnings forgotten or never known.
The creator fashioned a Madonna,
a thing of beauty, a joy, but not forever.
The blasphemous janitor swept the icon away with a wet rag.
But there
are still flies.
Copyright © 2000 Richard Fein
