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Fragile Area
(for Sharron)
by Nancy Shiffrin

Daisy and ice-plant maraud.
Fishermen casting, reeling, barely visible
in sly yellow fog, heavy on maddened breakers.
A child's voice blows across the sand,
"God has power over everything, except what's not His fault!"

Halfway to horizon a black form, perhaps a rock,
perhaps something alive perched on a rock. 
You, rising, moving toward land, first mammal
weary of watery labors.
You wanted to iron my blouse, detail the sleeve,
yet heard what vengeful voices hollowed me;
Father's feet, swollen from hours at the pressing machine,
Mother's cry, "Baba thought creases caused cancer!"
Blue burns hotter than I ever dreamed,
sea in glittering facets.

At the Getty we sit on a bench, consider
the new geometry, mathematics of rough surfaces,
clouds, shorelines, everything reducible?
I miss the way you fingered
the dusty covers of second-hand books.
Remember Fridays at the dollar show,
red-haired healing woman returned from dead?

Auburn curls invade my work. 
I serve wine from your glasses.
I forgive jockey shorts, beer cans, Satan
coaxing me toward the barnacled reefs.
You, about to depart again over the crashing waves,
it's you I beg to cast and reel.
Return through the windy tunnel.  Rest here
behind the dunes, beneath the savoring sun.

 

 

~~~
Signed inscribed copies of 
THE HOLY LETTERS (poems) 
and
MY JEWISH NAME (essays) are available
directly from Nancy at
nshiffrin@earthlink.net 
or
P.O. Box 1506, Santa Monica, CA.  90406.
~~~


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