Playing Cards Found on St. Patrick’s Day
Today he found the moon card from the tarot deck
Then later in the day an ace of spades
I know his unconscious is working over drive
I wish I could make my love write a poem
But we are the poem
Somehow we ended up here
In the same space
The spirits are surrounding us
My mom, my dad call up from the dead
But I hear my son and husband laughing, at vintage Tom and Jerry in French “Bonjour Pussycat”
Today is also St Patrick’s Day, and though not even an ounce of Irish, he wears the souvenir shirt my dad bought him. Dad’s final trip before he died was to the emerald isle
Just like today every day my ancestors are everywhere
Talking to me through clothes,
Through food, through eyes and even . . . dirt.
A fallen card on the ground, magic
U2 Haiku Sequence
U2
Truth, I slept with him
Because Edge is his cousin
I was 23
Edge
Bono was my lust
Until Dave, Edge’s cousin
Backing vocals, Scream
Song of My Experience
One happy hour, boy
Laughs Edge was not his cousin
Twenty years later.
Soccermomming with a muslim name
The suburbs were stinging imitation grass
Clinking ice in acrylic pitchers
The Lily Pulitzer brigade tipped over lawn chairs
To welcome the darker variety and with ethnic names
Macramé heels and impossibly thin, how did they lose their hips post childbirth?
O suburbia I have tried
This weekend the soccer dad after discovering my Iranian American heritage “you’re Jewish”
“No” I reply
The silence echoing in his eyes widening, the smirk his wife makes , he stutters the word mu mu muslim
And the awkwardness we both share and why does he need to know
So, I just smile and watch the game
I haven’t settled on an answer to give him
But our sons are both fantastic players, strikers, without fear they persistently run and pass the defenders, to attempt a goal.
