BLUEBERRY-PICKING
______________________________
Nomads,
displaced and stained.
Pick good ones,
toss aside the wilted,
caved in
like deflated
blue balloons,
detached,
a random clutter
left to shrivel
under the brush.
—–
CONFESSION
______________________
Our father told us
about a Tartar custom.
They’d tie an enemy’s legs
to two horses,
and strike each animal’s rump
to send them galloping
in opposite directions.
When I was a child
my father talked
about a Tartar’s soul,
which I believed
was embedded in me,
like a tick or a splinter,
or a chronic guest
who stubbornly refuses
to take his leave.
LINED UP ON THE BACK SEAT
________________________________
going home
from the beach
and squirming,
forced to create a continuity
of form on the station wagon’s
blue vinyl bench
like a school
of smoked whiting
arranged one-by-one
on a delicatessen tray
under smeared windows
without cohesive substance,
except for arms and legs,
stuck to the blue vinyl.
—–
Lynn Fanok is a poet and musician who recently returned to graduate school where her interest in poetry was reignited. She has written a collection of poems about her experiences as a survivor’s daughter examining her family, her memory, and her history. Lynn, originally a Jersey girl, lives in lovely Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
